WELCOME TO POETRY FRIDAY!
When you’re born the first week of March, you are legally obligated to celebrate all month long, even on the Ides… so, welcome to my Poetry Party. (Beware of dudes named Brutus.)
March has indeed come in like a lion. We’ve seen a lot of rainy, sleet-y, thunder-y days here, and it’s wiiiiiiindy just now, but already I can see the light of Spring at the end of the tunnel. There is all sorts of chaos going on in my garden – poppies returning, alyssum sluggishly coming into flower. There are long, naked whips rising from my Russian sage plants, and next door, the cherry-plum-peach-almond tree (whatever it is) has decided to give up on being coy, and is bedecked in delicate pinky-white blossoms. Even through scouring winds, Spring is bustin’ out all over, and with it comes a surge of, if not energy, purpose, and a renewed interest in looking around and seeing where we are. Hello! Welcome back from hibernation, Brain!
From Process…
One of the best things about having a poetry practice that includes other people is that they have often read poems that you have not. While doing a poetry project using slang – both reacting to it, incorporating it into a ten-line poem, and redefining it within our work – I was reminded of the poetry of Richard Wilbur, and his first book of OPPOSITES, first published in 1973. The brief I was working with was to use a slang word and then to move beyond it. I chose the relatively dated (but still well-used) slang word “snatched.” In drag circles, it’s a celebratory word that denotes a person’s flawlessness – you look mahvelous, darling. Sometimes for me, “snatched” evokes images of corsets and constriction, of firm adherence to beauty standards and a rigidly implacable sense of correctness. (Note that this doesn’t at all necessarily reflect the actual meaning of the term!) In that sense, it’s not always a friendly-feeling word… Like most people, I’m all for flawlessness, except when I’m against it – all of us have our moments of circling around what the pursuit of peerless and perfect means to us.
…to Poetry
The day I wrote this little poem, I was definitely in the against camp. I was feeling …pinched and pushed, and the idea of being snatched just made everything feel… worse. So I wrote this exploration of opposites. What was the opposite of “snatched,” in the sense of something wrapped and tied and perfect? What if we celebrated all things lax, roomy, slack, and slouchy? Is there anything worth praising in that? Well… obviously! Thank goodness, there are always opposite options.
NB: Though the poem uses the word “girl,” in the campy way that people toss it around, this poem is in celebration of delightful beings of all – or no – genders. You might choose to try this poem as it relates to who you are, and how you see yourself – there are a number of terms which could use a good rousing dose of opposites. Grab a thesaurus and have fun…
ALTERNATIVELY, SHE IS RELEASED
GIRL! That waist is surrendered –
No longer scrunched or subdued,
Freed from the tyranny of snaps and shaping.
Check it – her whole look’s relinquished;
Loosened and launched and liberated,
Unfettered to set free her frizz.
Unclasped from the grabbing and grubbing,
From striving to catch and to capture,
This girl is discharged and disentangled,
Is unsubtle, and unsubdued;
Has become unconstrained – and unhinged!
Fallible. Flawed. But FREE.
Friends, it’s been lovely to have you here! The party continues all month long. As always, you’re invited to join the month’s last hurrah during the Poetry Sisters’ March Challenge on Friday the 29th. (PLEASE click the image to enlarge for details.) In the meantime, I hope that you know that your perfection, whether spiraled or unspooled, constrained or uncoiled, buttoned up or billowing out – is ENOUGH. You’re loved unceasingly, just as you are.
Have a blissfully, blessedly unbound weekend.