I haven't written a blog post all month because I committed to writing a poem every day for 30 days. It was a challenge that sprung into my head at 2am, a frustrated response to being stuck mid-process on something I’ve been working on for years. I knew I needed to dive back into writing poetry - but how?
“Fuck it - I’ll just make myself write a poem every day and share it on Facebook. THERE! That will show my fear!”
Did it unstick me? A little.
Was the poetry good? Some.
Did it feel good? Oh yeah!
I’ve written poetry all my life, starting very young. It’s always come in voluminous fits and starts, more an expression of passion than mediation or deep selfrelection. This challenge inserted itself into my mornings as a part of my daily ritual of spiritual grounding and self care. It has been pretty delicious.
Ideas for the days poem often came to me at 2am, when I got up to pee or comfort my daughter (she SAYS she’s had a bad dream, I think she just likes falling back asleep while being held.) It could be just a word or an idea that I awoke with, I texted them to myself so I could start with them when my 5am rising time rolled around. They read like a strange code now when I look back:
The meaning of the dreams of Dogs.
Growing Monsters.
I wanted to be able to listen to everything.
Sometimes poems would burst forth partially formed:
These cattails speak together
with such reverence
of the eternal wakening day
that geese pause
What I eventually wrote and posted to Facebook rarely resembled what I started with:
Challenge- 1 poem a day for 30 days. No apologies, no excuses.
Day 2: Bullrush Reedsong
Bullrush reedsong is always hushed and easy,
even in the strongest wind,
even if Dragonfly egg-husks
are thrown from their leaves in the fall to be picked at,
even when their giant browned bodies tumble
into the marsh rot
hailing the sudden notes of winter,
that will press this place into greater stillness.
It's always their quiet song
that digs into my bones and moves me to the muds edge
serenading me with the sweet promise
that I still belong here.
Some were the direct result of dreams:
Challenge- 1 poem a day for 30 days. No apologies, no excuses.
Day 8 - Lost In The Waves
The full moon was a great tide in my dreams,
pulling Ocean waters over the road as I drove,
knocking my car into the mountainside
and then into a building
where friendly men unburied me,
cleaned me up and sent me on my way.
It’s those feelings I fear,
the water ones Moon gives rise to,
heaving waves that can't be stopped,
pulling me under with Her lessons,
Her many dismemberments.
If I give myself to Her,
will She be kind?
I don't think so.
Yes, She will re-assemble my bones,
fasten me back together,
make some facade of a man out of me,
when She is done with me.
When She is done with me.
Moon has always made me strange,
people see it
even if they don't understand why.
They smell it on me,
that I am over-ripe-rotting in a way
normal people aren't.
I'm one of those She tosses about,
tells Her secrets to,
the ones only animals understand.
I am one who might get lost in the waves.
I did feel the awakening of a new kind of poetic voice in me that I’ve felt hints of over the years. It’s a voice that mixes nature, altered states and words twisted together in ways that are often trance inducing. It’s the language one speaks when traveling through the lands that exist between the worlds. It mixes dreams, shamanic landscapes and waking life with sensitivity, but not timidity.
From Marry the River
… to dissolve into them so they can
seduce rocks with cool, vulvic enchantments
pass through the gills of trouts…
From Marsh Time
It's been writing history,
in water-grass swaying,
in rotting deadfall bones drifting,
in burrowed toads edging up
slightly,
waiting for thaw.
From Murmurs
Isn't that what human beings are supposed to do,
hear land songs
creeping roots,
gnawing rats teeth,
decode the passing rains and translate all of that
into our wood block,
hodgepodge flawed language of a sound-salad?
Towards the end of my 30 days I became very comfortable with the process of writing, and sharing with less attachment to the responses I might get. Many of my poems were personal, some mythical. I’ll share a few of them here over the coming days.
I’ve always enjoyed hearing poets read their own works, so I’ll share a few select pieces as podcast episodes here on substack. If you’re signed up to receive emails with new posts you’ll get a notification when a podcast comes out. I may reserve a few poems behind the paywall for paid subscribers, but most of them will be available to everyone.
It was an initiation of sorts, owning this part of me. As a single parent carving out the time to write poetry every day seemed like a luxury. It quickly became a source of nourishment, reclaiming a dormant part of myself that couldn’t find its way through the haze of washing dishes, doing laundry and driving everyone everywhere. It turns out there is room for this part of me. In fact it never gets in the way.
Maybe this was enough. Maybe there is no endgame here beyond poetry. The ritual of waking in the darkness and cultivating a language that reaches between the worlds certainly feels like enough right now.
Then again, tonight the moon is full, and anything can happen.