Writing Practice and The Muse Who is Always There
Writing Leap #40 Writers Who Read Poetry
Hi Writers,
Take a moment away from your writing time, find a comfy place to sit, open a poetry collection and read a poem at random. Breathe in the poetic lushness of the phrases, the evocative images and the essence of the words that open up to a larger universe. Close your eyes for a moment and let it all swirl around inside. Then read it once more, to be enchanted all over again with what words can do.
The poet is the writer’s muse, no matter your genre. A poem can show us how to cluster words together so they say what we mean, a lightning bolt from writer to reader.
I read this poem from time to time. It kind of haunts me. The perfect word in a perfect phrase is a lovely thing.
Picking Blueberries, by Mary Oliver New and Selected Poems, 1992
Once, in summer
in the blueberries
I fell asleep, and woke
when a deer stumbled against me.
I guess
she was so busy with her own happiness
she had grown careless
and was just wandering along
listening
to the wind as she leaned down
to lip up the sweetness.
So, there we were
with nothing between us
but a few leaves, and the wind’s
glossy voice
shouting instructions.
The deer
backed away finally
and flung up her white tail
and went floating off toward the trees—
but the moment before she did that
was so wide and deep
it has lasted to this day.
I’m stopping at these last three lines (there is more to the poem) because they are the ones that linger for me and the ones that have often affected my thought processes as I’m writing.
Happy Writing all you Wonderful Writers out there!
LINKING THE ARTS
A Visual of the deer/blueberry experience
A Good Phrase:
the expanded moment
A Story Poem for children, grown-ups and writers: Words with Wings by Nikki Grimes, 2013. For me the story shines behind and beyond the words.
