WHAT I’D TELL TO A POEM
IN response to the prompt (title, above) one of the women writing inside with us at Vermont’s Northwest State Correctional Facility wrote the following words during a ‘fast-write,’ in which she just wrote without stopping or making changes to her words for about 15 minutes. I transcribed her words as she wrote them, breaking the lines to fit the mood and emphasis of her words. After writing, she colored over her words with with soft pastels in strong purple and blue hues.
I’d tell the story of a girl
who woke up hating the whole world
every day,
the way she looked so sad
with clouds blending the gray
in her eyes like the mist
in the night;
until one day
those clouds faded
into skies of fire
blazing and spitting out souls of the damned
condemned by silver bars
cold yet warmed by thoughts
engulfed in metal chains formed
into razor wire that is constantly piercing
her skin, until a drop
of blood falls to a splatter,
a grenade being plunged
into a sea of silence.
That’s what I’d tell to a poem.
- ART
And another woman wrote, within the same timeframe:
What I would say to a poem is how
my life has twisted and turned, never
remaining stable for very long. How
my own inner demons transcended
to my very soul, to live there and fester
until my life began to rot. Of how
I longed for things, things that always seemed
just out of my reach – happiness, love, peace
and contentment. Of how I resented those
around me that had achieved those very things.
Of how my dreams fell one by one
off the side of my reality, drifting away
as if in space, with my heart longing
to reach out and bring them back. But
I could not grasp them. I would tell of how
one day, when my life felt the most lost, I
reached out and asked God to save me,
to give me back my hopes and dreams,
to allow me to feel happiness, love, peace
and contentment. And much to my amazement –
He DID!
- NL
[The idea for this prompt came from "Why Do Poets Write?" by Richard Jones. The last line is 'things I would tell to a poem']
