I am not a poet, so any poets who find this image compelling, feel free to steal it... When I was in the earliest, most traumatic and chaotic days of my divorce I felt so strongly the sense that God or the Universe or my own intuition (or perhaps all three, a triumvirate of insistently ignored voices) finally gave up on trying to get me to listen and just turned everything upside down. Like my life was an oversized and overstuffed purse and the me they were looking for was way at the bottom, hidden amongst the used tissues and children's toys, the old lip balm and spare tampons and key rings with unknown keys on them. All the mess of my life poured out on the street for everyone to see just to get me to finally pay attention.
It has made me, in the dozen years since then, increasingly unashamed and fearless out of necessity, but I wouldn't recommend it as a mode of learning to listen if you can avoid it.
What a vivid image, Asha! I hope someone does fashion this visual into a poem. I agree, it does seem like the universe doesn't take no for an answer — it finds ways (sometimes quite dramatically) to make us turn around, listen, and get the message. Thanks for sharing this!
I don’t, but I’ll listen now! For one of my all-time heartbreak albums, I’d choose “Are You Driving Me Crazy?” by Seam. I cry and cry and turn it up louder and louder. Thank you for being such an inspiration and guide. ✍🏻🩷
What a poem. The last bit really was a subtle punch in the gut... wonderful. As for intuition, I think if we are lucky enough to reach clear self-awareness as we grow older... that's the good stuff of maturity. I think that is when so many women are finally able to confront injustices inflicted upon them from decades before. People ask - why did you wait so long to tell someone...get a divorce...go back to school, etc. It's because the work of the self is long. :)
Love this prompt, Maggie, and the wise thoughts around intuition. I'm going to give the prompt a whirl later. And thank you for the introduction to Sarah Green and the Sixth Finch magazine. I'm reading that issue now, and the poems are remarkable.
This is such a deep post and I'm grateful for the prompt. It makes me think of a few foreshadowing poems I wrote myself. Thanks for sharing yourself and your thoughts. It's interesting how a poem and a prompt like this validates as it encapsulates an experience like this. Keep on keeping on with your journey of self-discovery Maggie. You are certainly making this place more beautiful as you do. ❤️
Maggie, Thanks for this! will play with this prompt, as a playwright/poet/author the theme often haunts me. Im curious about the stanzas- 2 lines each, then 3, 2,3.
As a prose writer less educated in poetry I’m always playing with form. Line breaks elude me, stanzas are strangers but strangers I want to get to know… any thoughts on this poem’s choice of stanzas/format? Thanks!
I am not a poet, so any poets who find this image compelling, feel free to steal it... When I was in the earliest, most traumatic and chaotic days of my divorce I felt so strongly the sense that God or the Universe or my own intuition (or perhaps all three, a triumvirate of insistently ignored voices) finally gave up on trying to get me to listen and just turned everything upside down. Like my life was an oversized and overstuffed purse and the me they were looking for was way at the bottom, hidden amongst the used tissues and children's toys, the old lip balm and spare tampons and key rings with unknown keys on them. All the mess of my life poured out on the street for everyone to see just to get me to finally pay attention.
It has made me, in the dozen years since then, increasingly unashamed and fearless out of necessity, but I wouldn't recommend it as a mode of learning to listen if you can avoid it.
I’m going to be carrying this image with me, Asha. Thank you. 🙏
What a vivid image, Asha! I hope someone does fashion this visual into a poem. I agree, it does seem like the universe doesn't take no for an answer — it finds ways (sometimes quite dramatically) to make us turn around, listen, and get the message. Thanks for sharing this!
Foreshadowing
after Sarah Green
The way the morning glory tendrils kept
Losing their hold on the balcony railing,
Falling instead into the fading hydrangea.
Nasturtiums more leaf than flower,
A result of the wrong kind of neglect.
The hummingbirds returned later than ever this year.
Thanks for this, Monica. 💗
The Crossword is cleared.
Because he always does it first.
It's because he doesn't use autocorrect.
And I don't have to, but I like to.
He calls that cheating.
Is getting help really the same as cheating?
I think that's gaslighting.
Gaslighting is cheating.
It is almost 9 a.m.
The crossword has been cleared for me to try to do alone.
Did I do this right?
Do I actually do anything right?
after Sarah Green
Thank you for sharing, Inez. I love that poems are already cooking. 🙏
Foreshadowing
after Sarah Green
Maybe we live our lives backward —
we know everything
that’s ever going to happen
at the beginning
of things.
Nick Cave wrote “Into Your Arms”
at least eighteen years before his first son died,
twenty-five before his second.
You can’t convince me
he didn’t know what was coming.
I chose my son before
he was ever mine.
I dreamed of his curls, his dimples,
long before we met.
And every day
I wait for him to leave.
That kind of love,
the kind I hold in a barbed fist in my stomach,
is unnatural.
It’s the kind that makes me
check his breathing throughout the night.
(He’s seven.)
It’s the kind where he
can’t eat alone
because I’m afraid he’ll choke.
It’s the kind that prevents me
from taking my eyes off him at the park,
without knowing he’s gone in my bones.
It’s the kind that would make me
set all the clocks backward,
tear the world apart,
break everything so violently and completely, it
fractured space and time —
and we started all over again.
I love that song. Do you know his record "Ghosteen"? It breaks my heart, and I keep listening. Thanks for sharing this, Kiki.
I don’t, but I’ll listen now! For one of my all-time heartbreak albums, I’d choose “Are You Driving Me Crazy?” by Seam. I cry and cry and turn it up louder and louder. Thank you for being such an inspiration and guide. ✍🏻🩷
Oh, I love this. Thank you.
What a poem. The last bit really was a subtle punch in the gut... wonderful. As for intuition, I think if we are lucky enough to reach clear self-awareness as we grow older... that's the good stuff of maturity. I think that is when so many women are finally able to confront injustices inflicted upon them from decades before. People ask - why did you wait so long to tell someone...get a divorce...go back to school, etc. It's because the work of the self is long. :)
The work of the self is long! Yes.
Love this prompt, Maggie, and the wise thoughts around intuition. I'm going to give the prompt a whirl later. And thank you for the introduction to Sarah Green and the Sixth Finch magazine. I'm reading that issue now, and the poems are remarkable.
They are remarkable!
This is such a deep post and I'm grateful for the prompt. It makes me think of a few foreshadowing poems I wrote myself. Thanks for sharing yourself and your thoughts. It's interesting how a poem and a prompt like this validates as it encapsulates an experience like this. Keep on keeping on with your journey of self-discovery Maggie. You are certainly making this place more beautiful as you do. ❤️
That's so kind, Lizzie--thank you.
Maggie, Thanks for this! will play with this prompt, as a playwright/poet/author the theme often haunts me. Im curious about the stanzas- 2 lines each, then 3, 2,3.
As a prose writer less educated in poetry I’m always playing with form. Line breaks elude me, stanzas are strangers but strangers I want to get to know… any thoughts on this poem’s choice of stanzas/format? Thanks!