My writing class has really allowed me to step beyond that singular room and explore all the corners I want. Now I'm finding I roam about the mansion freely, instead of limiting and confining myself. I've found that just as writing short stories and novels, writing poetry comes easily to me. Especially when I'm writing about what inspires me most!
Which, for those of you who know me, would be 1) The countryside 2) Small towns 3) Abandoned barns, farms and houses 4) Historic homes 5) Small towns 6) Thunderstorms 7) The Great Plains and finally 8) Country and small town life. As I've said hundreds of times before, even though I've lived in the city my whole life, I truly believe that I belong in the countryside. Hey! Just look at what inspires me! There's something so releasing about driving through the countryside, listening to the silence permeating over whispering fields, or taking a picture of a dilapidated house stripped of paint, fingers of sunlight spilling through its cracks.
Writing has always been that place I can go to visit such places, even as I sit before my laptop, in the bustling city of Sheboygan. I let my mind's eye take me up the front steps of that abandoned house, or lead me down a narrow dirt road to a forgotten small town, swaying corn field or quiet farm nestled in the hollow of a valley. I've never had a terribly busy life, but still it's nice to get away once in a while isn't it? If only for a few precious moments as you write. Whether it's a blog post, a story, a paper, an article...or any number of things.
Poetry is just another extension of that. But I believe it holds it's own power that makes it stand apart from my usual short story writing. What I mean by that is, whereas it would sometimes take you a paragraph or more to say something in a story, in a poem you can condense it into three to five lines, omitting words and adding in sensory details until the thought they are trying to portray becomes all the more powerful. I've posted a lot of my own poems on my blog, so feel free to read them. Condensing thoughts like that is one thing I really love about poetry. You can say a lot in a few words, increasing their power and play on your senses.
Also, you can speak in a language that literally flows and makes the words come alive. Recently I picked up a book from Sheboygan's local library that holds a collection of poems paying tribute to America's vanishing rural landscape, entitled Remember When. Albeit simple poems, they hold within them the ability to draw mental images in our minds, make us feel, taste, smell, touch and experience the words. Each poem is a miniature, condensed story within itself. I'd like to share a few short poems from the book that I particularly liked.
Some poems bring to life simple, everyday moments and turn them into something as if we're seeing them for the first time. Norman Rockwell was a master at this. His paintings portrayed everyday American life, yet each painting I saw made me stop and look deeper, as if I'd been too busy, or too consumed in tasks to realize the magic that lies within everyday moments. One of my assignments for my online class revolved around writing a prose piece for a painting. We had to come with a story of sorts behind it. I choose the Rockwell painting Family Grace, in which a younger boy and his Grandparent's were eating dinner. I found that it wasn't hard to create a scene behind the painting, because Rockwell injected so much feeling and emotion into it.
The first poem I would like to say is entitled Barn Lights at Night, by Mary Rufledt Gladitsch.
Lights on in the barn
Still make me smile
Knowing someone is home
I go back for a while
What a treasure I had
as a kid on the farm
returning at night
to that glow shining warm
Day after day
Night after night
Secure I could count on
my dad
and those lights.
Alongside each poem is a beautiful picture of the countryside. Whether it be an old, abandoned homestead and what it used to look like, an old family farm which has outlived its purpose, rusted farm equipment or any number of things. These images only add to the beauty of the poems, and make you feel them all the more.
Another poem I found particularly notable was one talking about an abandoned farm seen from a highway, as its title suggests: Barn Seen From Highway 53, by Mary Rufledt Gladitsch.
Forgotten barn
cradled now by
elderberrry bushes
overgrown and
forgotten too
Silent loft
echoing with
young boys
sweat
Sweet smell of new
mown hay
haunts
your rafters
Harvest memory
grows
dim
I was inspired by this book, and I haven't even finished reading it yet! There is simply something so poetic about the countryside. Something tranquil, something unassuming, something captivating, something breath-taking, something undiscovered and something worth while writing about. If you enjoy the magic of poetry, I would love to read some of yours! Or simply tell me what inspires you to write, no matter what type of writing it may be. To close off this blog post I would like to share a poem I recently wrote about a fictional abandoned barn. Often times when I'm reading, driving through the countryside or just plain bored I'll get a singular image in my mind of say...a desolate country road, a weed-entwined abandoned house, or a proud, old barn succumbing to nature's touch and find that I have to write about it. Such is the case with the poem I wrote yesterday. After reading half way through Remember When I garnered an image of an old barn, much like the ones portrayed in the book. Because I'm a visual learning, and a detail-oriented person, I couldn't rest until my fingers had put words on paper concerning every detail of that barn. My writing has always been heavily detailed, just read my blog post from a while back entitled Detail-Oriented and you'll get a better idea of where all of this is coming from.
In closing, which was supposed to be a paragraph ago! I hope you enjoy my poem, and again, feel free to submit your own, or simply drop a note saying what inspires you to write. I'd love to hear from you!
What I Seek, I Shall Never Find Again
Laughter drifts through splintered wood.
Is it from children past or the incessant
Prairie wind weaving between vine and beam?
Its fingers play deftly upon rusted farm
Equipment. Sleeping relics of days long ago.
Faded wood once proudly cloaked in red,
Now stands exposed to nature’s crude finger.
Each board a gray slate like winter’s barren trees.
Thinning with age, bringing sagging beams closer
To the surface, until its skeleton is all which remains.
Swaying, patched roof like the back of an old mare.
Pungent scent of fresh hay lingers amidst rafters,
Heavy footfalls of men puncture the heavy stillness.
But it is only the wind, once again playing a nostalgic
Tune through the barn’s hollowed soul and heart.
Deep into the earth its field stone foundation sinks,
Reclaimed slowly to the land which it once so
Proudly housed and stored, providing livelihood to
The men whose own hands raised its walls and beams.
Those same men now lie in the ground, befallen to fate.
Wooden windows set deep in aged stone, desolately
Peering through a labyrinth of shamelessly clinging
Vines and weeds. They twist and twine atop every
Surface, breaking through windows like prying fingers,
Or spindle like arms reaching up from the grave.
Atop cinder blocks an abandoned farm truck sits,
Hollowed headlights facing the dilapidated barn.
They are one in the same, both having accepted fate,
Yet silently they yearn for those heavy footfalls,
Booming voices and familiar grind of country life.
Rusted engine runs no more, tires bent and stripped.
Beams bowed, silently crying out in a voice stretched
Thin and dry for the weight of a single hay bale.
The dusty wheel begs for the slightest touch of a finger.
Both watch the weed-laden drive, waiting for time to return.
Laughter drifts through splintered wood.
Is it from children past or the incessant
Prairie wind weaving between vine and beam?
Its fingers play deftly upon rusted farm
Equipment. Sleeping relics of days long ago.
Faded wood once proudly cloaked in red,
Now stands exposed to nature’s crude finger.
Each board a gray slate like winter’s barren trees.
Thinning with age, bringing sagging beams closer
To the surface, until its skeleton is all which remains.
Swaying, patched roof like the back of an old mare.
Pungent scent of fresh hay lingers amidst rafters,
Heavy footfalls of men puncture the heavy stillness.
But it is only the wind, once again playing a nostalgic
Tune through the barn’s hollowed soul and heart.
Deep into the earth its field stone foundation sinks,
Reclaimed slowly to the land which it once so
Proudly housed and stored, providing livelihood to
The men whose own hands raised its walls and beams.
Those same men now lie in the ground, befallen to fate.
Wooden windows set deep in aged stone, desolately
Peering through a labyrinth of shamelessly clinging
Vines and weeds. They twist and twine atop every
Surface, breaking through windows like prying fingers,
Or spindle like arms reaching up from the grave.
Atop cinder blocks an abandoned farm truck sits,
Hollowed headlights facing the dilapidated barn.
They are one in the same, both having accepted fate,
Yet silently they yearn for those heavy footfalls,
Booming voices and familiar grind of country life.
Rusted engine runs no more, tires bent and stripped.
Beams bowed, silently crying out in a voice stretched
Thin and dry for the weight of a single hay bale.
The dusty wheel begs for the slightest touch of a finger.
Both watch the weed-laden drive, waiting for time to return.
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