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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Away from Regret



Regret does not have to be
A permanent wall, cold concrete
Built to trap the broken and assaulted.
Do not cultivate terror or fury;
Neither provides healing
For a scarred, bruised soul.
Prune the branches of despair
And open a window to the divine.
Angelic light allows redemption to bloom.



**Process notes**  The prompt from Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads was to create a "poetic sketch" using groups of words. You can find more information on this prompt here. Normally, I rely on free writing heavily when writing, but I've started using a similar process when working with the wordle words from The Sunday Whirl.  I simply write the words in "Poet's Sketchbook" and then end up with a bunch of squiggly lines tracking how I connect the words.  I basically did the same thing with this prompt, only I had several categories of words on the paper and then followed the connections that popped into my head.  I realize this sounds just a bit convoluted, so I'll include a couple of photos from my sketchbook that may clarify things.

This was my attempt at creating a poem sketch as based on the prompt.


My poet's sketchbook 

These were a portion of the notes I used to write my recent poem "A Modern Take on Fairy Tales."





11 comments:

Kateri said...

Beautifully writen and very wise advise...

Ella said...

Mary I loved how much you shared with us! I hope to share my poet's journal on Friday, I mean my "writer's studio", ;D

It is beautiful, so many details!
I love how you ended it in amazing hope~ really wonderful! :D

Kerry O'Connor said...

I like your focus on finding the positive and pruning the negative from a life. Unfortunately, the pictures did not load up on my screen, but the poem says it all.

Fireblossom said...

I really enjoyed seeing your squiggles and how you work to arrive at the finished poem. I've been asked to show my (longhand) notebook on my blog, and would if I had a picture of it.

Margaret said...

I adore looking at journals, sketchbooks! Thank you for sharing yours. I love the idea of using different colors! The first line grabbed me and stayed with me the whole way through the read.

Daydreamertoo said...

Amazing how we all figure out how and what to do with words to make sense out of the nonsense of them all.
Yours worked splendidly.

Sherry Blue Sky said...

"prune the branches of despair and open a window to the divine" - such beautiful lines. Lovely writing, and I am way impressed with your "sketching". Bravo!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for sharing the pictures of your writing journal! That was really fun. :) And I'm totally going to buy new notebooks and pens today.

"Regret does not have to be
A permanent wall, cold concrete"

Love this.

rosemarymint.wordpress.com

Laurie Kolp said...

Very nice, Mary. I love the last line!

hedgewitch said...

Very expressive, and it was great seeing your longhand process notes--really added to the sketchbook feel.

Mystic_Mom said...

This was so cool, you even shared your process which was awesome! I must try this!