I Wrote a Poem

This weekend I attended a Jane Club online writing retreat, and it was AMAZING. People wrote some truly gorgeous pieces, and I learned so much from the amazing guest writer Liz Femi.

The most fantastic thing I learned this weekend was the golden shovel poetic form created by Terrance Hayes and inspired by Gwendolyn Brooks.

We were instructed to take each of the words from this poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, and make them the last word in each line of the poem. It’s a challenge, but was a wonderful exercise in structure and form.

Here is the original poem :

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Here is my poem :

There was no he, she, they, me, only We 

The smell of the lilacs was real 

The breeze off the pine needles was spring Cool

Hearing the words leave her lips when she said We   

Was all I could remember after she Left 

The notes she passed over shoulders in school 

“I like you, I think we should go together”…there it was. The first We

I would never again have to Lurk 

Waiting at the party for her to arrive, always Late

“I’m so happy to see you, we should go outside.” We

I never saw him, was completely destroyed by his Strike 

He made it all dirty, he ruined the innocence, he set her Straight

In the blink of an eye there was no more We

Duets became solos, and alone in my car I’d Sing 

The notes feeling empty, the words dripping over me like Sin

I didn’t want to just be me, I craved the wholeness of the We   

She’d glance at me across the room, her dress gauzy Thin 

Me, imagining the taste of her lips as she sipped her juice and Gin

If I squeezed my eyes tightly, keeping the tears locked in, I could remember We

The way our fingers wove together like the sweet hum of Jazz 

Sunshine on our faces, lying in the flowing grasses of June

In this place there will only be We   

And if this is where it ends, where together we Die 

I wouldn’t even mind if it was Soon