For the month of February, I have the honor and privilege of co-teaching a writing workshop with another adjunct through the Central Community College community outreach program.
The first 2 weeks focused on poetry (taught by Scott), and the next 2 weeks will be fiction and nonfiction (taught by me).
Poetry isn’t really my thing, but since the other instructor asked the participants to write some for class, I thought I would give it a try. I would like to share my poems with you.
For this first poem, we were tasked with using specific words in the poem. The words were: cows, tricycle, table, thimble, and drum. Here’s my poem.
Visions of Me
Let the world view me as it may.
Let it see me as a cow,
bloated,
mindless,
concerned with only feeding my desires.
Let it see me as a beaver,
industrious,
busy,
constructing walls to contain and protect myself.
Or let it see me as a circus bear,
dressed in bright colors,
riding a tricycle,
doing what I can to entertain.
I will take the world’s views of me and store them in a thimble,
left on a table in a back room,
taking them out to read when I lose my vision of myself.
Until then,
let me view myself as I may and continue moving forward,
marching to the beat of my own drum.
This next poem is a sensory poem.
A New Space
I stood at the window,
Looking out,
Waiting for the world to feel familiar.
The blues, greens, oranges, and yellows that normally colored the world had faded to various grays and white.
The scents of wildflowers and freshly mowed grass was replaced with the tang of a campfire long since extinguished.
The sun that used to warm my shoulders was covered by clouds.
The breeze that moved heat across the land was now a chill that formed goosebumps on exposed flesh.
There was a sameness to the shape of the land,
How the parts put themselves together,
But there was a difference in the feel.
The world seemed less inviting,
Blanketed with coldness and cruelty.
It appeared sad and lonely,
Hurtful and scary,
Rather than enlightened and safe.
I stood at the window,
Looking out,
Waiting for the world to feel familiar.
