Posts Tagged ‘writing process’

This little poem, “Morning Prayer,” by Deborah J. Brasket, just might leave you feeling sanctified

March 21, 2021

Enjoy this profound blog post by Deborah J. Brasket: Like Flowers Falling Everywhere: A Poem. Click on the title to see an accompanying painting by Odilon Redon. This beautiful little poem, aptly titled “Morning Prayer,” is soft and mysterious, filled with an intimate silence that just might leave you feeling sanctified.

“Morning Prayer”
Deborah J. Brasket

Everywhere I look I see you,
I see us. This fragile hand,
this blue pen, this yellow pad.

These fingers gently folded,
Embracing the eagerness of
your movements across the page.

This tender paper accepting
All we write. These words that
rise up and lay down, so simple.

You are what I feel. This beating heart,
this circling breath, this wide sphere of
silence that enfolds us. Your soft sigh.

The day waits. It pours out of us whole
and clear, unending. How kind you are.
Kindness like flowers falling everywhere.

* * * * *

I asked a writer-artist friend who she thought is speaking in the poem, and to whom. She nailed it with this reply: “It sounds like the poet is speaking to herself about her writing life, and the love she feels for it.”

This reminds me of what B. Nina Holzer wrote in her lovely book, “A Walk Between Heaven and Earth,” A Personal Journal on Writing and the Creative Process. This edited journal entry is on the back cover:

Talking to paper is talking to the divine. Paper is infinitely patient. Each time you scratch on it, you trace part of yourself, and thus part of the world, and thus part of the grammar of the universe. It is a huge language, but each of us tracks his or her particular understanding of it.

You can see the complete journal entry here: Burghild Nina Holzer inspires us to write and discover who we are and what we have to say.

Speaking of kindness and writing about morning rituals, here are two related poems: “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye, and one I wrote, “Sanctifying Morning.” It was published in Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace.

The Curse of Dementia: On watching a loved one diminish before your eyes, poem by Ken Chawkin

May 29, 2016

I sometimes get depressed seeing what’s happening to my sweetheart over time. She has dementia and lives in a care facility.

I keep my feelings in and don’t burden people with them. Only talk favorably about her. But sometimes I have to write them down. It’s one way to deal with an emotional reaction to a worsening situation. There may be more going on, but I am not always privy to such spiritual transformation.

Writing offers relief. By expressing what I’m feeling, I objectify my feelings in words and no longer hold them in. Then I can rework the words into a poem, and an introduction. This creates a kind of satisfaction. It gives me something else to focus on, and lightens the emotional load.

Hopefully, it will ease the hearts of those carrying a similar burden, should they read this. And maybe inspire them to do the same.

The Curse of Dementia
On watching a loved one diminish before your eyes

This passing of time
Is too fast for comfort

You’re changing but not
Getting any better

As I get used to this
Diminished form of you

I forget who you used to be to me

But this is nothing compared
To what you have lost

Yet who is happier

Mortality marches on
Until it will fall off

This cliff called life

© Ken Chawkin
May 29, 2016
Fairfield, Iowa

Related: An Unwanted Guest | Dementia Blues | Teapot Poem

Burghild Nina Holzer inspires us to write and discover who we are and what we have to say

August 20, 2014

When it comes to writing and creativity, one book I highly recommend is A Walk Between Heaven and Earth: A Personal Journal on Writing and the Creative Process by Burghild Nina Holzer. It’s all about finding your own voice, your own truth, that’s been building up inside you, waiting to be revealed, to yourself, to others.

I found it in a Women in Print bookstore in Vancouver, BC, Canada. This author and writing facilitator turns her book on the creative process into a journal thereby demonstrating what she is teaching. She shares personal observations about her life, the world around her, and how she encourages her students to write.

Read this book and you’ll be inspired to express yourself in writing. There is a beautiful excerpt on the back cover, edited down from the original, that reads:

Talking to paper is talking to the divine. Paper is infinitely patient. Each time you scratch on it, you trace part of yourself, and thus part of the world, and thus part of the grammar of the universe. It is a huge language, but each of us tracks his or her particular understanding of it.

Here is the full description under the journal entry 4:30 P.M. on page 55.

Talking to paper is talking to the divine. It is talking to an ear that will understand even the most difficult things. Paper is infinitely patient. It will receive small fragment after fragment of a large network you are working on, without you yourself knowing it. It will wait out decades for you to put together the first faint traces of your own code, a code you might have understood as a small child but which you are now gathering on a new level of understanding. The white paper is waiting. Each time you scratch on it, you trace part of yourself, and thus part of the world, and thus part of the grammar of the universe. It is a huge language, but each of us tracks his or her particular understanding of it.

I later posted another excerpt from her book: B. Nina Holzer’s final entry in her journal shows us how she is an innocent instrument for writing.

A recent post on the writing experience is intimately expressed in this lovely poem, “Morning Prayer,” by Deborah J. Brasket.

I’ve posted earlier entries on writing you may also find worthwhile: Writing—a poem on the writing process; INSPIRATION, a poem by Nathanael Chawkin; Elizabeth Gilbert—Some Thoughts On Writing; Writers on Writing–What Writing Means To Writers; and Words of Wisdom on Writing from Literary Lights.

a writing tanka on writing tanka by ken chawkin

September 8, 2013

writing tanka
a writing tanka on writing tanka

stare at the blank page
intimidating or what
now just start writing

no matter what you put down
it will all come back to you

© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa, USA
September 7, 2013

WRITING TANKA—Preparing to Write

Writing—a poem on the writing process

Haiku On The Nature of Haiku

Writing—a poem on the writing process

January 18, 2011

Writing

Writing is a series of letting go’s
of our preconceived notions of how it goes
and allowing a deeper part of you to tell you what it knows;
when the writing’s good, it shows.

Because, ultimately, when we do,
that recognition of what’s true,
comes from the deepest part of you.

So let the writing speak to itself,
and let the writer listen, for

writing is listening on paper.

© Ken Chawkin

Also see Storytelling—a poem on the storytelling process

(more…)


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