prompt for We Write Poems, prompt (#54) Take the driver’s seat!
This week WWP has turned the tables and asked us to write a poem prompt. That’s what is meant by “taking the driver’s seat”. The choice of prompt is fully up to each participant. Additionally we’re asked to write our own poem in response to the prompt we’ve suggested.
better out than in
Here’s the prompt:
Shame is the starting point for this prompt. Shame is often a strongly felt emotion. But shame in itself is also a useless state of being, restoring nothing that might have been damaged, and is at root a self-centered point of view. Most of its energy comes out of our not wanting it to be revealed. However this prompt is not “about” shame, but rather how it might be addressed in a manner that expresses and releases the experience. How you address and discover this process within a poem is the real challenge of this prompt.
And please… be appropriate to this environment and community. We’re not asking for you to reveal anything that might be harmful for you to do! Select something that you are willing to address. We trust to your own sense about appropriateness here. (Needn’t be anything earth-shattering, OK?)
shame: (what the dictionary has to say)
(noun) a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior
• a loss of respect or esteem; dishonor
• a person, action, or situation that brings a loss of respect or honor
Here’s the poem: (by way of one example)
Actually I wrote this poem first in response to another poem I’d read. But in afterthought it seems a worthwhile avenue to explore, and a poem all the better to express and examine this feeling in a positive manner.
neil reid @ may 2011
I feel so ashamed
cuz I failed in my duty
to write about shame.
Light as a feather. Now where’s the bee?
Thanks Madeleine.
This one . . . I’m not sure if I welcome it or will host it with reserve. Actually, I often come back to things touching on shame, and then dance around them. Your prompt will be a good opportunity to take it by the hand, look it in the face, and address the unspoken to make peace or just move on. I like it.
Thank you Yousei.
First rule in adversity… make friends with it. Then it becomes a partnership, then just one.
Thanks!
That’s a tough one. I like tough
Thanks Tilly! Brave soul!
But you know “tough” only is so from the outside, where possibilities look limited. Stepping across that line and so much simply evaporates, simply does not exist. That’s what both prompt and poem are about. That’s the amazing part.
nicely done Neil
Thank you Wayne.
Dear Neil,
When you have been abused as a child, shame becomes part of the very fabric – or perhaps tiny tears in the fabric – of one’s soul. So many of my poems are based on eradicating that shame. In speaking openly and freely through poetry about incest forced upon me; about manic depression, PTSD, and the rest of the alphabet soup that rouses my synapses; and politics and social justice, I’ve been privileged to hear back from so many fellow “shamers.” We come to the conclusion that, when that shame is put upon us by fate or by judgment of others in the form of labels (especially my LGBTQA readers), together we can move through it.
I had read this poem before and it really stuck with me. A very strong meditation on the consequences of one’s actions, no matter what the age. Thanks for this, Neil. Take care, Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/summer-sizzle/
(speaking for myself) The price of shame is that we, to what measure we do, take that currency in as being something true about ourselves. And unexpressed, it remains. We close our eyes, not wanting to see. We’re in the dark. It can seem to take on weight.
(odd at first to relate, but… ) Friend of mine once said, standing in a darkened room, reach and flip the light switch on. Tell me then, just how long does it take for darkness to be replaced by light?
That is precisely how I like to think and intend about what expression does.
I know one thought might suggest, “that’s over-simplified, it’s not that easy to do”. However just who, what attitude do we suppose is speaking that response? So yes, it is a deliberate conscious choice – what we intend, the stance we express in life. (Some might say, stepping outside beliefs.)
Not a matter of how far, but the direction we face.
Thank you Amy for your willing expression in both poems and otherwise. I appreciate good company. ~neil