How I Became a Writer: Poetry

When I was a participant in the Eastern Iowa Writing Project at Saint Ambrose University, I was encouraged to give many writing styles a go.  One of the challenges was to write poetry.  Now, I am not a person who particularly cares for poetry.  I’ve never read a book of poems for pleasure- only for work/lesson design.

I hate free verse poetry. I’m terrible at writing poems that rhyme; the few times I’ve attempted to write rhyming poems they ended up sounding like they were written by Dr. Seuss on crack.

For me, the best way to write poem is with a formula.  And luckily for me, there are a great many poem structures to use. 

The poems I’m sharing today are called Lune Poems. An American Haiku, if you will. Their structure can be thus: three words on the first line, five words on the second line, and three words on the final line.  A three line poem. Easy enough. Maybe.   Here goes…

The Chapel at St. Ambrose

Serene peaceful blessed

The water of new life

Trickles through me

And this one, also written while in the chapel...

Mass

People sharing hope

Faith grows when properly nurtured

Love shines through

The chapel had just gone under major renovations...

Remodeling

Clean and new

Smells of paint and plaster

Rebirth of space

And then this…

To Be a Writer

Courage conviction confidence

Soaking in all that surrounds

Just letting go

Also on that day, I wrote one that I didn’t finish.  Maybe you can help me with it.

The Eastern Sun

White and bright

Promising warmth and new life

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As you can see, I’m not a poet by any stretch of the imagination.  And I’m not even sure if I’ve followed the formula correctly. I JUST now looked up the formula on the internet and the sample poems I found actually created a complete sentence.  Kinda like this one I wrote a minute ago, after the internet search:

Nest

From the top

of that old Oak tree

baby birds fly.

I make mistakes. Many mistakes. But it’s because I have to stretch my writing bone, you know?   And that’s o.k.   What are you trying to do and making mistakes at?  Keep at it.

Until next time, be good to yourself.

~Nadine