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Poetry: Stumbling Forth

I’ve fallen in love with poetry and have been reading a lot more of it. I’m inspired by the variety, depth, and beauty of the distinct voices poets bring to their works. While I’m still quite clumsy, I’m enjoying exploring different types of poetry and playing with line breaks, punctuation, and repetition.

Last week, I was blown away by the thoughtful comments of encouragement and support. My anxiety tells me those poems were a fluke and everyone will hate this week’s offerings, but I know that’s resistance taking the lead. Creativity takes a lot of courage, and I’m summoning all I got to keep moving forward. One word at a time.

This week’s classwork was to write poems inspired by our favorite books. I’m sharing three poems:

  1. Erasure poem from the first page of “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss
  2. Erasure poem from a random page “The Slow Regard of Silent Things” by Patrick Rothfuss
  3. Acrostic poem using “The Name of the Wind”

I hope you enjoy these latest attempts. As always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Night

Silence;
hollow lacking,
wind creaking,
brushed autumn laughter.

House;
music huddled,
quiet news,
sullen sorts underfoot.

Splintering;
black heat,
white hands, 
polishing lamplight flame.

Subtle;
wrapping deep,
wide stone,
patient flower waiting.

Surely

slow down, fingers touch
brushed sweetness
curled edges
realizing proper treasure

surely
surely

the moment eyes want
furious things
shame burning
greedy wanting twisting 
world of pushing desire 

she closed 
around herself
obviously

in
need 

Into the Wilds Within

Tired, weary I bring myself forth to press into
hallowed places, for I dare not travel alone into the
ethereal nest of words I can’t say out loud.

Nothingness, thick about me, caped and hooded,
aloof with boots of thick mud, trapped between
me and me and me, the versions of which I can’t
erase, write again and again for all time.

Oh, worldly wordsmiths of grace and mire
forgive me my shortcomings, for I’m not worthy.

‘Tis the smoke in my eye blinding me to the
hero, the pain of which I can’t find no matter how
earnestly I go into the woods and the wilds to

wrestle the places deep within to seek diverse
images. Words fail me, they don’t capture the
nothingness and everything of the beautiful
dreams of what could be, what I could be.

34 thoughts on “Poetry: Stumbling Forth”

  2. Excellent Bridgette! 👏👏 First 2 poems have some wonderful descriptions and nice imagery. While your acrostic was a lovely tribute to Poetry! 😁❤️

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  4. The erasure poems are nicely done. With the acrostic I wonder if you tried to excise maybe at least three words per line and let the theme speak with less description. To me it loses a little of its impact for being slightly overdone. But hey it’s lovely and this is just one chap’s random wondering!

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    • Yes, I can see that! I am looking forward to growing more in my abilities to perhaps one day write something I’m really surprised and amazed by. I love when a poem sneaks up on you…the kind where the truth hits you at the end with a gasp. Oh, to write like that!

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  7. I like the first two as they are probably like my poems. I have never tried to do erasure poetry but it looks like fun. How to you select the words or does someone else do it. That would make a good poetry challenge.

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    • You choose the words that speak to you on a page. I’m sure there are rules somewhere, but I just played around with the words that were there to see what emerged for me. I’d love to see your take on an erasure poem.

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  14. Damn, these are fantastic! I geeked out for a minute because I was like “Erasure poetry, what’s tha—- ooooh, I know that!!!” LOL. I’ve always known it as Blackout Poetry. I’ve done exactly one Erasure Poem, many years ago, but I love it. I used pg 111 of the Original Scroll edition of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.

    𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚍

    𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚐𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚋𝚎𝚗𝚗𝚢 𝚊𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚝,

    𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜-

    𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚑𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝚞𝚙 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜,

    𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚓𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚘𝚗

    𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜.

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      • Glad i could be of service, lol. And thank you . ^^

        Have you tried Definition poetry yet? That’s really fun.

        Growing up, I never bothered much with poetry because, from a writer’s perspective, I couldn’t understand it at all. It seemed too hard. Haiku being the only exception. I love haiku, the rigid format makes it like a language puzzle, and it really forces you to think about your message because you don’t have any wiggle room.

        Anyhow, yeah, poetry never worked for me. Or so I assumed. Then I joined this reading/writing community that’s like 90% poets and it encouraged me to give poetry a proper try.

        Liked by 1 person

      • I never tried definition poetry but I love the one you posted so much. I may have to give it a try.

        I’m new to poetry and always assumed it was too abstract for me, but I’m really enjoying exploring and playing with words in a new way.

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      • Thank you. You definitely should, it’s pretty fun. I’ve never done Acrostic before. You can do a Definition Poem and I can do an Acrostic. :3

        There’s also A – Z poems. I’ve done two, one as a collaboration and one on my own. I’ll be posting mine – about Rimbaud – on here at some point. That one is not much of a priority. If you wanted to see it as an example, I can always send it to one of your contact links you shared on your homepage.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Homework! I’ll try and explore one next week. I just finished the poem I’ll be posting on Wednesday because I’ve got my 3-year-old nephew the next few days and it leaves little time/energy for much else! But I’ll definitely see if I can write one next week.

        I’d love to see your A-Z poem and perhaps tackle one of those soon as well. My favorite styles so far are ones with either little rules (free form) or strict structure (triolet).

        Liked by 1 person

      • Yay, nephew visit! I hope y’all have fun. \^o^/

        I like prose poetry (why wouldn’t I, ha) and haiku best.

        I’m not too active on Facebook, so just a heads-up that I’ll be requesting your Instagram. I always feel like I’m not supposed to bother people when they have their account set to private. But I guess you’d not have put the link there if you weren’t okay with followers requesting, lol.

        Liked by 1 person

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