Friday, April 5, 2013

Poems for Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop — Week 1: Prepare

Weekly Parenting Poetry WorkshopWe're sharing our poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:

Week 1:

Prepare


This week we're considering the planning and waiting that goes into considering parenting: fertility, conception, loss, frustration, anticipation, and hope.

If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog, link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!

I'll be posting next week's theme and prompts on Monday. You can post this week's poems at any time during the challenge — the linky will remain open. To be eligible for a prize, link up or paste your poem(s) before Monday.

For full details on the workshop and prizes and to grab a badge, see the intro post and Week 1's prompts.



Here are my poems for the week.

I'm feeling vulnerable (anyone else?) and wishing I'd worked ahead so these wouldn't be first drafts, ha ha. But let's just plunge in and share what we have in progress, together!

I wrote two based off two of my daily prompts, so I'll repeat those here to show what I was writing from.

April 3: Body: Write a poem celebrating — or bemoaning — the physicality of pregnancy. Muse on the beautiful shape or the discouraging aches and pains.

Stealing Youth

I have aged
we all have aged
waiting for you to come.
Nine months a lifetime
stretching joints
and wearing down bones
bending my back to a curve
and grinding my hips to dust.
I ache like an old lady
creaking out of chairs
swearing as I rotate slowly
slowly over in bed
leaning on a stronger shoulder
to shuffle along.
You've stolen my youth
as you build your own.


April 6: Fears: What scares you about the future with your children? What scared you before you had them?

On thinking of having kids

You can't know the dive down from the pool,
guessing the rough grain of the board on bare feet,
air shivering water droplets into goosebumps,
the peek over the ledge, ten whitened toes gripping,
the clench and rise in organs and muscles,
ripples and lines minuscule below.
You have to grip the silver tubes of the ladder,
metal under your faltering feet,
walk out to the edge,
and go.
The split seconds of air whistling,
weight plummeting,
water rushing into your nose and over your head,
closing you in,
knowing now what it is to dive.



Link up your posts or paste your poems in the comments!

Please comment on the participant directly above you and one other participant of your choice. Feel free to share each other's poems on Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, or Twitter (#parentingpoetry) — everyone can use a little poetry!

I'm asking for your email address in the linky so I can email to let you know when the prompts and linkies are live, and so I can notify you if you're a winner. If you aren't linking up, you can leave your email address in the comments.



5 comments:

Tree Peters said...

okay, well reading your "first drafts" almost made me not want to post. But I'm reminded that reading poetry is a good way to get better at writing it. Plus, I believe that at the end of this month I will be better and will feel more confident about expressing myself this way. Even if it's just for myself, that is sooo cool!
So glad you're doing this. So, yes, feeling vulnerable, but also safe with you and whoever would be connected to you.

Julia Mangan said...

What Tree said. :) I especially love the 2nd one! It's definitely like that.

Karen du Toit said...

As always, Lauren, I love your poetry!
It is raw, and natural, and the message is clear!
Yes, our youth are being stolen in our bodies, but we get it back through reliving it through the eyes of our children.
Love the analogy with diving! :D

Anonymous said...

So beautiful. Wish I wrote poetry to participate :) Mybe I'll start :)

Related Posts with Thumbnails