#NationalPoetryMonth

          #NationalPoetryMonth inspires me to add more poetry to both my own and my students' writing collections. So I use prompts with them that also move me to write what I assign. My students liked this, and I hope you will, too.

Inner Riot

(inspired by the poem "Harlem," by Langston Hughes)

by Susan L. Lipson

What happens to social outrage,

never acted upon?

Does it whirl around like a funnel cloud,

in search of captives to uplift and transport,

Or does it hover indecisively,

Then get blown out to sea?

Does it spark like twigs and logs,

carefully stacked and lit,

Or choke like embers

smothered by handfuls of sand?

Maybe it just gets buried,

like nuclear waste?

Or does it burn like a city set ablaze by rioters?

Bittersweet Truths for Writers Who Strive To Share Memorable Words

From my years of writing words intended for many more eyes and hearts than they often reach, I have synthesized the following bittersweet truths and guidelines for myself, as well as for fellow writers:


1) Exasperation over sometimes absurdly long delays in artistic gratification may be part of a bigger plan for eventual success, in which time is irrelevant. Write memorable words and they will be remembered, even if not within the time frame you desire. 

2) Expectations of others' reactions to your words can hinder your openness to hearing those reactions. Listening does not guarantee hearing any more than looking guarantees seeing. Remove your filters--the expectations--and take time to process feedback without simultaneously qualifying its relevance. 

3) There is no such thing as a definitive "final draft." The author must settle on defining "final" in terms of a work's readiness to move others without further revisions--and the author's readiness to move on to another project.

4) Your words are yours to hatch and nurture, no matter how long they have to sit in a journal, a computer file, or your mind; consider them as germinating, not wasting away. 

5) Some obscure comments from editors make sense in their own time, via epiphanies visible only to eyes freshened by time away from a manuscript. Celebrate each realization with a zealous revision and a self-congratulatory hug for your progress.

6) Treasure all comments about how your words moved a reader, even if those words only appeared on a post you wrote on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog. The point is to move people, and if your public works evoke written responses, even negative ones, you have succeeded in evoking emotions and inspiring others to write.

Transitional Moments Captured in Poetry: A Few New Poems by Yours Truly

First, a poem about so many people I know, facing new physical limitations, forced job changes, or abrupt endings to life as they knew it....


Transition 

By Susan L. Lipson                                                      

                                             

"Well, I used to be a..."

He pauses.

Hearing his own regrets

in casual conversation 
sparks an epiphany:

Time to BE,

who he is now.

Time to accept

and roll onward--

forward.

And now a personal poem, about becoming an "empty nester":

Tides of Change

By Susan L. Lipson

Sometimes a wave hits me,

knocks me over with a question:

Is this really not temporary--

are my kids really not coming home to live with me again?

And I think I might drown in my lonely cup of coffee,

at a table meant for five.

But then, into my paddling hands, float lovely seashells:

a phone message, a text, an email

from one of them,

and my buoyancy returns

to keep me afloat.

And finally, a poem based on my first published poem, about a shocking moment in the life of a new doctor--a poem featuring a few simultaneous transitions, colored by irony:

Manicure

Unscrewing the top of the bottle of nail polish,

Aachooing from the odor of the “Pink Pearl” liquid,

Eschewing her desire to paint her left hand first with her steadier right fingers,

Renewing the brightness of her thick, yellowed nails,

Undoing the ancient look of her wrinkled hands,

Subduing the wave of wistfulness she feels about her once lovely skin,

Imbuing every stroke with a feeling of accomplishment,

Reviewing the accuracy of her colorful coverage,

Redoing the nails that show thin spots,

Pursuing beauty until…

 she dies, and a medical student begins

Undoing it all with a scalpel:

Dissecting the withered hands,

Inspecting the bones, tendons, and ligaments of his live model,

Protecting the structure to keep it intact as he is

Detecting the actual parts that were mere terminology until now;

Respecting the complexity of this appendage, while

Rejecting the sight of the chipping pink nail polish to keep it from

Affecting his composure by

Connecting this hand to an old woman, who only weeks ago, was

Selecting this pink color to paint over her nails, and never

Suspecting that the color would outlive her—No!

Correcting his use of her to it in his mind,

Electing to ignore the one sign of humanness that remains, and

Reflecting on that irony.

 The transition of one of my favorite children's authors, Natalie Babbitt, whose writing days ended forever a couple of days ago, made me feel contemplative today. Words left in others' memories carve out our place on this planet better than any tombstone markers.