When I was a litigator, I had a little ritual around my rage for when opposing counsel or the judge made me really angry. I would slick my hair back into a bun and put on bright red lipstick and then get to work on whatever email, reply, motion, brief, etc. the moment called for. It started as a kind of joke (a signal to others to leave me the hell alone if you don't want your head bitten off), but I soon found this literal "marking" of the emotion actually did help me get into a sort of flow state where some of my best, even creative, legal work was done. I would venture to say it was something of a sacred time. So I think there's something to the way we acknowledge and honor our rage, which can so often feel out of control, that helps us wrangle its wildness just a bit, to where we can work with it. Even if it's just with a coat of red lipstick.
What a brilliant way to slow down your angry response without making it feel suppressed. Maybe there is something in this I can use to help my 8 year old granddaughter who has outbursts of anger that scare her and her mother.
I love the symbolism of the red with an angry mouth, the recognition of need by you, and the ritual of finding a container for it. What a beautiful thing you made, Emily! I’m thinking long on your description and what I need my own rage ritual to look like. It’s powerful energy to channel. I admire you for it.
Dear Emily, congratulations on finding your way to use the energy of rage to do your best work. I remember feeling rage when I felt wronged in large corporate meetings. The Administrator to the Senior VP was an accomplished manager herself. She counseled me that, as women, it’s not effective to try to fight back with brute force. She smiled and said ‘a stiletto works much better’. It meant your response needed to be targeted, pointed and sharp. Nobody crossed her……
Hello Pádraig and all of you lovely poets. Happy Mother's Day to those who celebrate, and for those for whom this day is fraught, I am sending you extra special juju.
Pádraig, your poem "Makebelieve" is stunning (as usual), especially "all our songs and stories; our songs about the stories we've forgotten; and all that we've forgotten we've forgotten." That waterfall of forgetting, and the songs that somehow survive it. That feels like the heart of why we keep making things at all.
This question about rage and creativity sent me back to a piece I wrote years ago for HuffPost about being the Black adopted daughter of a woman whose father was in the KKK. I used my fury as fuel, but an important part was making sure the rage didn't corrode the work itself. Rage alone can be corrosive, destructive. We must do no harm, even when we're blazing.
That said, as a micro-to-macro writer, I have so often used my own rage to speak to larger issues, to turn private pain into something that might be useful, that might help someone else see more clearly. The trick, I think, is to let the rage propel you toward the page, then step back and let craft, precision, and empathy take over. The poem (or essay, or protest, or policy, or painting, or song, etc.) becomes the container that holds the heat without letting it burn everything down. (This idea of words as containers that hold meaning is inspired by the splendid Metaphors We Live By (1980) by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, which I've been fascinated by this last week and highly recommend.) Thank you as ever, community and fosterer of the same!!
And speaking of rage, regret and balance, I was listening to New Order’s “Blue Monday” this morning (one of my all-time favourite tracks) and these lines resonate:
As a survivor of two disappointing marriages, I've certainly had much "poetic inspiration" in my life; I may not have known a romantic "happy ever after" with a long-time life partner, but the heartbreaks have done much to develop (on my best days) my compassion & humanity for those around me - as well as allowed me to "exchange ashes for beauty. Here's one poem:
Love that 'both/and' perspective, Dawn - a valuable reminder that, as Viktor Frankl once said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves..." (or our perspective...)
Thank you so much Anne. I too am the survivor of two divorces, one short marriage, one long; both with much to redeem them, including my children. But it's still hard to carry and process the disappointment and self-judgement. I will treasure in my heart your words, especially "am I the caretaker of crushed courage or protector of hope's spring."
Ooooh, that last line, Pádraig – the cool dismissal of the anger…
I experienced my first-ever panic attack almost two years ago, triggered by a betrayal so monumental it literally took my breath away. That evening, I began what turned out to be the poem below, in an effort to figure out what the hell had happened. Still a work in progress (and probably too much melodrama in lines 4 to 8!) but here it is…
Anne, yes, writing as discovery is exactly where it’s at. (Why does that sound like I’ve suddenly stepped through a portal from 1963?) That last stanza is a very powerful snapshot of the moment. wonderful writing as ever, Anne.
I do write, but less so in my 8th decade. It’s not for lack of desire nor holy prompts, but I lean more into grandchildren (my own and their schoolmates) these days. It is in storytelling and teaching (natural history) that I am energized, and too that which is positively fueled by my rage at the overt evil that had engulfed the country I live in. I do shout and protest because I am a grandfather who wants “No Kings” for all my grandchildren. Right now I am on a ferry to Inishmor with my anam cara, Patti. An escape to my ancestral homeland. We have visited the Rowte of County Antrim and the graves there. But I cannot be completely detached from those I love back in the “States.” Rage is useless unless used to fuel goodness, and so I walk on in harmony and beauty hoping in may “rub off” on those I meet and talk story with or just give a wave and a “Hiya!” For indeed, all are my relatives, may I be a blessing, even blessed to be blessing.
Patrick, I am with you when you say, “rage is useless unless used to fuel goodness.” Enjoy your relatives, and may your ancestors bring you joy and inspiration, too.
Patrick, I love that you walk on in harmony and beauty among those you love and those you meet along the way. I've begun to see that prayer, like poetry, can be walked day by day like this. Thank you for blessing me this morning.
Patrick, I love your line about how rage is useless unless used to fuel goodness. It reminds me of a quote from Rebecca Solnit about how all the great activists, when they were angry, were angry because of threats to the places, people, and communities that they loved. Their anger came from an intent of protection, not of vengeance. She ends by saying "Love is necessary, anger is perhaps optional".
And in looking for that quote, I found an essay where she references another by Hannah Arendt: "Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. … to speak of nonviolent power is actually redundant." That definitely feels related and I'll have to muse on it -- thank you for leading me down a wonderful love-focused rabbit hole! :)
I am just now learning this about creative possibilities. As part of a Men’s group, this past week I was remembering a long forgotten part of my youth. At a young age, looking around I couldn’t find adult men I could respect. So much so that I went through a period where I wished to be a woman. My “male” body seemed shut down to a world I sensed, ever so quietly, often unclear to me, a world of Beauty, tenderness, and gentleness. I could only identify such qualities as belonging to women.
Now, as I still am often bewildered by what choices many men make, I choose to create music. I put headphones on, close the curtains in my “home-made” recording studio, and record live flute music to accompany piano. Without planning, I feel my music becoming full of tenderness. As angry as I might feel towards the horrors arising in our world, music is wrapping me in tenderness. Thank goodness. Best, David🏮
Thank you for your frank discussion of your bewilderment. As a mother of sons, I worry about the complexities men face. Growing up, I had brothers but no sisters. As a mother, I’ve had sons but no daughters. I’ve been so thankful to finally have granddaughters as well as grandsons. In all, I see difficulties both men and women must face and have compassion for both. We are human beings, and I am grateful to the men I’ve known who have not rejected their feelings. The world puts so much on us and it requires bravery and comradery, creativity and acceptance, and reaching out to navigate our lives. ❤️
For the past year, I have hosted a writing workshop event at my local bookstore, called Poems Against Authoritarians. We read a few poems and quotes for inspiration, then I provide three prompts to get people writing and sharing if they want.
It has been such a great tool in many ways: for me, a deadline to read and plan, and for others, a nudge to get words and emotions on the page then maybe speak them out loud. (I’ll share the prompts if anyone wants!)
Some of us have stapled our poems to neighborhood light poles, or even read them to our members of Congress on their voicemail.
Michelle, I love this practice, and that you hold your workshops at a bookstore. Writing Poems Against Authoritarians is a beautiful example of "holding the space." Through a book study at my church, I got introduced to Hanna Reichel's "For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional." I recommend it highly; it's led to some really revealing and healing discussions in our group. Her chapter: Stand Firm, or Don't Give Up Space has been such an anchor for me when I feel like despite the heroic efforts of so many people, we are slipping further down the hill. We are not going quietly. We are holding the space.
Sounds like you are changing the worlds of the people you touch who in turn touch others. I love the idea of reading a poem into the voicemail of a congressperson. Would love to see your prompts.
We have had all types of prompts. A few of my favorites: blackout poetry where people got the text of an executive order and a black sharpie // Obituaries (inspired by Victoria Chang‘s book “Obit”), where we wrote obituaries for various institutions, ideas, norms, or whatever. // Write your own pledge of allegiance. // Write directly to America, channeling Allen Ginsberg’s “America.”
Michelle, this is absolutely fabulous. I love the idea of reading poems to Congressmembers! I am definitely going to do that -- whenever I've gotten a response from my congresspeople, they've said the number one tool they use to fight for protective legislation is human stories.
In some way, I find it heartening to know, amidst the increase of technology, legalese, and corporate objectives cut off from the living part of life, that human stories are still a driving force for change.
I am a longtime single father through sudden tragedy. My daughter was killed at age six by an impaired driver. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”Most of what I learned about being a father, I learned through mothers in specific and women in general. I watched. I sat. I listened. I learned. I studied Mother Mary (I am a Protestant pastor) and Mother Teresa. Didn’t plan it that way, but it is the way it is and I am grateful. - Dwight Lee Wolter.
I will know soon, Beth. I wrote feverishly and immediately after my daughter's death and during the aftermath knowing that the curtains would close on memory and trauma. I am just now reading the 150 or so page journal and revisiting it. I had tried twice before but couldn't handle it. Now, hopefully, I can. Wish me luck and, if you are so inclined, pray for me. O Peace, Dwight Lee Wolter
I feel for you when you say about reading your journal that "I had tried twice before but couldn't handle it." But you will, Dwight, you will, and (if my experience is anything to go by) you will be glad you wrote that journal. The curtains will not close on your memories because you had the courage to write. I don't wish you luck, but rather an ever-deepening "peace which passes all understanding".
In time, others will watch you, sit with you, listen to you, learn from you because you have absorbed - or, perhaps, are still absorbing - the life lessons to be learnt from all this. God be with you, and use you to bring comfort and help to others who suffer their own losses. Their losses are all individual, of course, yet somehow all the same, which means that you can reach out to and comfort those whose experience is different. Go and be the pastor you are!
Thank you, David, for this deeply spiritual and perceptive piece. I wrote/rewrote my first entry today. I didn’t want to begin with my daughter’s death. So I wrote the opening piece titled, “A Perfect Day.”
Just love your poem Padraig and particularly these two lines of yours:
“and our songs about the stories we’ve forgotten;
and all that we’ve forgotten we’ve forgotten.”
It brought me into the mystery of remembering, the power of nostalgia, and essentially into the struggle and beauty of our humanity. For trying to take the energy of rage and turning it into something creative, I ironically thought of this “p” word — PAUSE. In the midst of turmoil — whether personal, interpersonal, political — I find if I pause (which is often not easy to do) rather than immediately react, I am better able to find a creative and more loving response.
Your words touched something steady in me. Those two lines of Padraig’s open a doorway, don’t they — that place where remembering and forgetting braid together, where the mystery of being human feels both tender and immense.
I felt the same pull you describe: the ache of nostalgia, the beauty of what returns to us, and the quiet reckoning with what we’ve lost along the way.
And your naming of pause — that landed.
I know exactly the pause you’re speaking of. The one that interrupts the reflex to react, the one that lets the body breathe before the mind rushes in. It isn’t easy, but when I can find it, even for a breath, something in me shifts. The response becomes more spacious, more creative, more loving. Less about the wound and more about the wisdom underneath it.
Thank you for articulating that so clearly. It feels like its own kind of remembering. XO
I just want to say that "your words touched something steady in me" is perhaps the most exquisite compliment I can imagine for a writer. It sounds like it belongs in some sort of benediction for poets, "and may your words touch something steady in all who hear."
Thank you for your thoughtful words, Danielle. You listen well and decipher the reflections of others with such insightful expressions of your own. Truly exquisite.
Today I am writing in the words of one my student. We are here together reading and thinking of this Sunday's prompt: "what follows rage is care; whatever is destroyed in rage must be cared for after".
As I read thru these wonderful comments it seems rage was often harnessed like a wild stallion, bucking and churning, then somehow broken into ‘ordered emotion’… something you could ‘trot’ with.
In some ways I envy this, as I can’t recall a moment or time in my life in which I raged. All the anger, disappointments, injustices, etc were quickly put into pragmatic packages, convenient for freezing, and easy to pull out and stew over at any occasion.
Oh to rage and excise the boil in a swift stab, rather than containing the festering abscesses.
I was about to comment on the same phrase. I recognize that impulse in myself to take the anger, package it and put it in the freezer. What a great image. Thank you, David.
O how I love your poem. I'm glad you reminded me of it
Several years ago as the global rhetoric and language beasts have been heating up unleashing wasteful and destructive ugliness, I found myself increasingly enraged by it. Anger is my go to when I need it least.
I started painting stones with the word Lovingkindness in every language (an ongoing project) with a Hebrew and Arab stone right in front on our stone wall which leads to our town cemetery and planted a waterproof stand there where I post poems from start of Spring through start of winter
Sometimes your poems are posted there Padraig among others at my whim.
This personal "poetry corner" with its insistence on world wide lovingkindness is comfort and helps transform my raging heart some days.
Thank you Carol! I have seen people pause to read and look as I look out the window and many pass by because we are on a state road. Some have made a point of how much they like seeing it there among our gardens.
This week we did something born of rage, disappointment and lies. For the first time ever, in our sixties, we stood outside a local abbatoir with hundreds of others and protested about abhorrent acts going on in secret (until now).
I felt like I wish I could have turned that into some sort of enduring creation so am grateful to hear protest reimagined as an act of creativity.
It is fitting that we are writing about this on Mother's Day, what was once an anti-war holiday.
I consider myself a belligerent pacifist. There are many things in the world that make me angry. It is my job to channel that anger into something good without resorting to violence.
Sometimes that is a poem, sometimes it is a protest. Sometimes it is just the spark I need to hold space for a patient in a vulnerable moment. All feel equally important.
Stunning photo, Padraig. Brilliant poem too. Good morning, fellow poets. I read this prompt question a few different ways. One is, how do you take (as in "I can't take it anymore"), the energy of rage from within or coming at you from someone else, and turn that into something creative? There are a million poems, paintings, and preservations of time(see what I did there?), evidence of how it's possible to endure anything hard.
Here's my first attempt to do so:
You tried to wash me with the energy of your rage.
Rather than rinse it off, I let it soak into my bones.
When I was a litigator, I had a little ritual around my rage for when opposing counsel or the judge made me really angry. I would slick my hair back into a bun and put on bright red lipstick and then get to work on whatever email, reply, motion, brief, etc. the moment called for. It started as a kind of joke (a signal to others to leave me the hell alone if you don't want your head bitten off), but I soon found this literal "marking" of the emotion actually did help me get into a sort of flow state where some of my best, even creative, legal work was done. I would venture to say it was something of a sacred time. So I think there's something to the way we acknowledge and honor our rage, which can so often feel out of control, that helps us wrangle its wildness just a bit, to where we can work with it. Even if it's just with a coat of red lipstick.
Ritual to tame it...This makes so much sense to me, Emily.
I love this take Emily. There is a sacredness to it, the ritual and the release.
What a brilliant way to slow down your angry response without making it feel suppressed. Maybe there is something in this I can use to help my 8 year old granddaughter who has outbursts of anger that scare her and her mother.
Goodness gracious, Emily! Love this SO " wrangle its wildness just a bit, to where we can work with it."
I love the symbolism of the red with an angry mouth, the recognition of need by you, and the ritual of finding a container for it. What a beautiful thing you made, Emily! I’m thinking long on your description and what I need my own rage ritual to look like. It’s powerful energy to channel. I admire you for it.
Dear Emily, congratulations on finding your way to use the energy of rage to do your best work. I remember feeling rage when I felt wronged in large corporate meetings. The Administrator to the Senior VP was an accomplished manager herself. She counseled me that, as women, it’s not effective to try to fight back with brute force. She smiled and said ‘a stiletto works much better’. It meant your response needed to be targeted, pointed and sharp. Nobody crossed her……
Hello Pádraig and all of you lovely poets. Happy Mother's Day to those who celebrate, and for those for whom this day is fraught, I am sending you extra special juju.
Pádraig, your poem "Makebelieve" is stunning (as usual), especially "all our songs and stories; our songs about the stories we've forgotten; and all that we've forgotten we've forgotten." That waterfall of forgetting, and the songs that somehow survive it. That feels like the heart of why we keep making things at all.
This question about rage and creativity sent me back to a piece I wrote years ago for HuffPost about being the Black adopted daughter of a woman whose father was in the KKK. I used my fury as fuel, but an important part was making sure the rage didn't corrode the work itself. Rage alone can be corrosive, destructive. We must do no harm, even when we're blazing.
That said, as a micro-to-macro writer, I have so often used my own rage to speak to larger issues, to turn private pain into something that might be useful, that might help someone else see more clearly. The trick, I think, is to let the rage propel you toward the page, then step back and let craft, precision, and empathy take over. The poem (or essay, or protest, or policy, or painting, or song, etc.) becomes the container that holds the heat without letting it burn everything down. (This idea of words as containers that hold meaning is inspired by the splendid Metaphors We Live By (1980) by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, which I've been fascinated by this last week and highly recommend.) Thank you as ever, community and fosterer of the same!!
Beautiful, Lisa Marie, especially "We must do no harm, even when we're blazing". So important but so difficult to do when in the flames...
Thank you, Anne. Ah, that eternal search for balance...
And speaking of rage, regret and balance, I was listening to New Order’s “Blue Monday” this morning (one of my all-time favourite tracks) and these lines resonate:
How does it feel
To treat me like you do?
When you've laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are…
I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me
Just how I should feel today…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GMjH1nR0ds&list=RD9GMjH1nR0ds&start_radio=1
And yes to Lakoff and Johnson's book too - so good!!
This one takes me back! I haven’t listened to this tune in forever, thank you for the reminder. Classic and a perfect illustration for our point!
"that holds the heat without letting it burn everything down ". Your entire comment is a keeper for me and especially this line.
Amy, you are very kind. Thank you.
Lisa, what a background! I appreciate how you show care and appreciation for those around you.
Thank you, Karen, for reading and for your words.
Lisa, you radiate self possession, power, and wisdom. Thank you for your thoughtful and keen reflection.
As a survivor of two disappointing marriages, I've certainly had much "poetic inspiration" in my life; I may not have known a romantic "happy ever after" with a long-time life partner, but the heartbreaks have done much to develop (on my best days) my compassion & humanity for those around me - as well as allowed me to "exchange ashes for beauty. Here's one poem:
Kintsugi (Both/and)
Am I a two-time failure at marital bliss, or
a two-time survivor of love’s labor lost?
Am I the guardian of broken dreams
caretaker of crushed courage or
protector of hope's spring?
Am I dawn or dusk?
fall or spring?
Are we the dying dogwood on our patio -
beautiful for several seasons yet
autumn's fire and spring’s blossoms
no longer grace our branches?
We all bear scars of brokenness.
Will my new scars gleam golden or
shine silver
in this vessel of love's hope?
May my imperfections become
courageously beautiful badges of
hope lost yet True Love found.
Love that 'both/and' perspective, Dawn - a valuable reminder that, as Viktor Frankl once said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves..." (or our perspective...)
You are obviously dawn :)
Thank you so much Anne. I too am the survivor of two divorces, one short marriage, one long; both with much to redeem them, including my children. But it's still hard to carry and process the disappointment and self-judgement. I will treasure in my heart your words, especially "am I the caretaker of crushed courage or protector of hope's spring."
Sorry, thank you so much DAWN (but thank you Anne also for your comment).
Ooooh, that last line, Pádraig – the cool dismissal of the anger…
I experienced my first-ever panic attack almost two years ago, triggered by a betrayal so monumental it literally took my breath away. That evening, I began what turned out to be the poem below, in an effort to figure out what the hell had happened. Still a work in progress (and probably too much melodrama in lines 4 to 8!) but here it is…
Twisting our history,
his sly lies suck the air from my lungs,
leaving a gasping vacuum
where love used to breathe.
Prone-pitched, I retch
bile-bitter anguish;
my known life suddenly, violently,
unmoored and cast adrift.
No exit-sign from this
breaking-heart hell; just one
juddering breath-step at a time,
all foggy, boggy uncertainty underfoot.
Anne, yes, writing as discovery is exactly where it’s at. (Why does that sound like I’ve suddenly stepped through a portal from 1963?) That last stanza is a very powerful snapshot of the moment. wonderful writing as ever, Anne.
Thank you!!!
I do write, but less so in my 8th decade. It’s not for lack of desire nor holy prompts, but I lean more into grandchildren (my own and their schoolmates) these days. It is in storytelling and teaching (natural history) that I am energized, and too that which is positively fueled by my rage at the overt evil that had engulfed the country I live in. I do shout and protest because I am a grandfather who wants “No Kings” for all my grandchildren. Right now I am on a ferry to Inishmor with my anam cara, Patti. An escape to my ancestral homeland. We have visited the Rowte of County Antrim and the graves there. But I cannot be completely detached from those I love back in the “States.” Rage is useless unless used to fuel goodness, and so I walk on in harmony and beauty hoping in may “rub off” on those I meet and talk story with or just give a wave and a “Hiya!” For indeed, all are my relatives, may I be a blessing, even blessed to be blessing.
Patrick, I am with you when you say, “rage is useless unless used to fuel goodness.” Enjoy your relatives, and may your ancestors bring you joy and inspiration, too.
Patrick, I love that you walk on in harmony and beauty among those you love and those you meet along the way. I've begun to see that prayer, like poetry, can be walked day by day like this. Thank you for blessing me this morning.
Patrick, I love your line about how rage is useless unless used to fuel goodness. It reminds me of a quote from Rebecca Solnit about how all the great activists, when they were angry, were angry because of threats to the places, people, and communities that they loved. Their anger came from an intent of protection, not of vengeance. She ends by saying "Love is necessary, anger is perhaps optional".
And in looking for that quote, I found an essay where she references another by Hannah Arendt: "Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. … to speak of nonviolent power is actually redundant." That definitely feels related and I'll have to muse on it -- thank you for leading me down a wonderful love-focused rabbit hole! :)
Hannah Arendt and Rebecca Solnit are favorite women and soul kin of mine. Pleased that my own comment reminded you of them.
I am just now learning this about creative possibilities. As part of a Men’s group, this past week I was remembering a long forgotten part of my youth. At a young age, looking around I couldn’t find adult men I could respect. So much so that I went through a period where I wished to be a woman. My “male” body seemed shut down to a world I sensed, ever so quietly, often unclear to me, a world of Beauty, tenderness, and gentleness. I could only identify such qualities as belonging to women.
Now, as I still am often bewildered by what choices many men make, I choose to create music. I put headphones on, close the curtains in my “home-made” recording studio, and record live flute music to accompany piano. Without planning, I feel my music becoming full of tenderness. As angry as I might feel towards the horrors arising in our world, music is wrapping me in tenderness. Thank goodness. Best, David🏮
Thank you for your frank discussion of your bewilderment. As a mother of sons, I worry about the complexities men face. Growing up, I had brothers but no sisters. As a mother, I’ve had sons but no daughters. I’ve been so thankful to finally have granddaughters as well as grandsons. In all, I see difficulties both men and women must face and have compassion for both. We are human beings, and I am grateful to the men I’ve known who have not rejected their feelings. The world puts so much on us and it requires bravery and comradery, creativity and acceptance, and reaching out to navigate our lives. ❤️
David, thank you for sharing these tender thoughts with us.
For the past year, I have hosted a writing workshop event at my local bookstore, called Poems Against Authoritarians. We read a few poems and quotes for inspiration, then I provide three prompts to get people writing and sharing if they want.
It has been such a great tool in many ways: for me, a deadline to read and plan, and for others, a nudge to get words and emotions on the page then maybe speak them out loud. (I’ll share the prompts if anyone wants!)
Some of us have stapled our poems to neighborhood light poles, or even read them to our members of Congress on their voicemail.
Doesn’t change the world, but it’s not nothing.
Michelle, I love this practice, and that you hold your workshops at a bookstore. Writing Poems Against Authoritarians is a beautiful example of "holding the space." Through a book study at my church, I got introduced to Hanna Reichel's "For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional." I recommend it highly; it's led to some really revealing and healing discussions in our group. Her chapter: Stand Firm, or Don't Give Up Space has been such an anchor for me when I feel like despite the heroic efforts of so many people, we are slipping further down the hill. We are not going quietly. We are holding the space.
Sounds like you are changing the worlds of the people you touch who in turn touch others. I love the idea of reading a poem into the voicemail of a congressperson. Would love to see your prompts.
We have had all types of prompts. A few of my favorites: blackout poetry where people got the text of an executive order and a black sharpie // Obituaries (inspired by Victoria Chang‘s book “Obit”), where we wrote obituaries for various institutions, ideas, norms, or whatever. // Write your own pledge of allegiance. // Write directly to America, channeling Allen Ginsberg’s “America.”
Thank you Michelle. Great prompts.
Not nothing! Thank you!!
Michelle, this is absolutely fabulous. I love the idea of reading poems to Congressmembers! I am definitely going to do that -- whenever I've gotten a response from my congresspeople, they've said the number one tool they use to fight for protective legislation is human stories.
In some way, I find it heartening to know, amidst the increase of technology, legalese, and corporate objectives cut off from the living part of life, that human stories are still a driving force for change.
Michelle-- I'd love to read your prompts! Elizabeth
Sent you a message with a link to the whole folder!
I am a longtime single father through sudden tragedy. My daughter was killed at age six by an impaired driver. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”Most of what I learned about being a father, I learned through mothers in specific and women in general. I watched. I sat. I listened. I learned. I studied Mother Mary (I am a Protestant pastor) and Mother Teresa. Didn’t plan it that way, but it is the way it is and I am grateful. - Dwight Lee Wolter.
My heart goes out to you. I hope your daughter's light in some way stays with you.
I will know soon, Beth. I wrote feverishly and immediately after my daughter's death and during the aftermath knowing that the curtains would close on memory and trauma. I am just now reading the 150 or so page journal and revisiting it. I had tried twice before but couldn't handle it. Now, hopefully, I can. Wish me luck and, if you are so inclined, pray for me. O Peace, Dwight Lee Wolter
Thank you for sharing this Dwight.
Thank you for reading, Lauri.
I feel for you when you say about reading your journal that "I had tried twice before but couldn't handle it." But you will, Dwight, you will, and (if my experience is anything to go by) you will be glad you wrote that journal. The curtains will not close on your memories because you had the courage to write. I don't wish you luck, but rather an ever-deepening "peace which passes all understanding".
In time, others will watch you, sit with you, listen to you, learn from you because you have absorbed - or, perhaps, are still absorbing - the life lessons to be learnt from all this. God be with you, and use you to bring comfort and help to others who suffer their own losses. Their losses are all individual, of course, yet somehow all the same, which means that you can reach out to and comfort those whose experience is different. Go and be the pastor you are!
Thank you, David, for this deeply spiritual and perceptive piece. I wrote/rewrote my first entry today. I didn’t want to begin with my daughter’s death. So I wrote the opening piece titled, “A Perfect Day.”
Just love your poem Padraig and particularly these two lines of yours:
“and our songs about the stories we’ve forgotten;
and all that we’ve forgotten we’ve forgotten.”
It brought me into the mystery of remembering, the power of nostalgia, and essentially into the struggle and beauty of our humanity. For trying to take the energy of rage and turning it into something creative, I ironically thought of this “p” word — PAUSE. In the midst of turmoil — whether personal, interpersonal, political — I find if I pause (which is often not easy to do) rather than immediately react, I am better able to find a creative and more loving response.
Dear Michael,
Your words touched something steady in me. Those two lines of Padraig’s open a doorway, don’t they — that place where remembering and forgetting braid together, where the mystery of being human feels both tender and immense.
I felt the same pull you describe: the ache of nostalgia, the beauty of what returns to us, and the quiet reckoning with what we’ve lost along the way.
And your naming of pause — that landed.
I know exactly the pause you’re speaking of. The one that interrupts the reflex to react, the one that lets the body breathe before the mind rushes in. It isn’t easy, but when I can find it, even for a breath, something in me shifts. The response becomes more spacious, more creative, more loving. Less about the wound and more about the wisdom underneath it.
Thank you for articulating that so clearly. It feels like its own kind of remembering. XO
I just want to say that "your words touched something steady in me" is perhaps the most exquisite compliment I can imagine for a writer. It sounds like it belongs in some sort of benediction for poets, "and may your words touch something steady in all who hear."
Thank you. I appreciate the sweet comment and you reaching out to share it. So lovely. XO
Thank you for your thoughtful words, Danielle. You listen well and decipher the reflections of others with such insightful expressions of your own. Truly exquisite.
O you are singing my much need to heed song. PAUSE. Thank you.
Thank you for this, yes PAUSE!
Thanks for that fantastic poem.
Feeling rubbish!
Flu bug rampantly raging.
Not only in my breast,
But everywhere
It's a complete little bugger
Infiltrating my time
Cancelling of precious events!!
But sweetly my white corpuscles
Giving this bug, "what for"!!!
Ar least I'm hoping so!
From on high
You delight in the golden statues
in your image.
And you who were picked to carry out the deeds
polish the feet of the statues
as you slither round them
flicking your forked tongues,
feeling for scents of the living.
The babies, the weak, and the old ones
are easiest to squeeze
so you do.
Full on their deaths
you grow groggy
with eyes glazed in the afterglow.
Rest there.
Further out from the feet
others organize
pulling weeds planting seeds
tending trees and nurturing crops
to nourish the babies, the weak, and the old ones.
Tending the souls and the soil
will in time
bring forth new days
of care, courage, and commitment
to the common good.
Those days are coming
when the snakes will retreat to their cold dark caves
and the meek will tend the earth.
Tending the souls and the soil
will in time
bring forth new days - really struck a chord for me. Thanks for sharign
Truth Karen! Thank you for this. "Tending the souls and the soil
will in time
bring forth new days
of care, courage, and commitment
to the common good."
Jean, this made me chuckle out loud. Thank you.
Hopefully, I'll be chuckling soon!!
Your sweet white corpuscles will triumph!
Today I am writing in the words of one my student. We are here together reading and thinking of this Sunday's prompt: "what follows rage is care; whatever is destroyed in rage must be cared for after".
As I read thru these wonderful comments it seems rage was often harnessed like a wild stallion, bucking and churning, then somehow broken into ‘ordered emotion’… something you could ‘trot’ with.
In some ways I envy this, as I can’t recall a moment or time in my life in which I raged. All the anger, disappointments, injustices, etc were quickly put into pragmatic packages, convenient for freezing, and easy to pull out and stew over at any occasion.
Oh to rage and excise the boil in a swift stab, rather than containing the festering abscesses.
I like your metaphor of packaging and freezing and stew David.
I was about to comment on the same phrase. I recognize that impulse in myself to take the anger, package it and put it in the freezer. What a great image. Thank you, David.
This is fantastic David!
O how I love your poem. I'm glad you reminded me of it
Several years ago as the global rhetoric and language beasts have been heating up unleashing wasteful and destructive ugliness, I found myself increasingly enraged by it. Anger is my go to when I need it least.
I started painting stones with the word Lovingkindness in every language (an ongoing project) with a Hebrew and Arab stone right in front on our stone wall which leads to our town cemetery and planted a waterproof stand there where I post poems from start of Spring through start of winter
Sometimes your poems are posted there Padraig among others at my whim.
This personal "poetry corner" with its insistence on world wide lovingkindness is comfort and helps transform my raging heart some days.
Amy, what a beautiful and generous use of furiously energy! Your thoughtful and creative response must be healing for so many
Thank you Carol! I have seen people pause to read and look as I look out the window and many pass by because we are on a state road. Some have made a point of how much they like seeing it there among our gardens.
Such a beautiful translation!
That last line just floored me!
This week we did something born of rage, disappointment and lies. For the first time ever, in our sixties, we stood outside a local abbatoir with hundreds of others and protested about abhorrent acts going on in secret (until now).
I felt like I wish I could have turned that into some sort of enduring creation so am grateful to hear protest reimagined as an act of creativity.
It is fitting that we are writing about this on Mother's Day, what was once an anti-war holiday.
I consider myself a belligerent pacifist. There are many things in the world that make me angry. It is my job to channel that anger into something good without resorting to violence.
Sometimes that is a poem, sometimes it is a protest. Sometimes it is just the spark I need to hold space for a patient in a vulnerable moment. All feel equally important.
Thank you for the reminder about the original deeply angry, deeply caring impulse behind Mother's Day. We can never be reminded often enough.
Stunning photo, Padraig. Brilliant poem too. Good morning, fellow poets. I read this prompt question a few different ways. One is, how do you take (as in "I can't take it anymore"), the energy of rage from within or coming at you from someone else, and turn that into something creative? There are a million poems, paintings, and preservations of time(see what I did there?), evidence of how it's possible to endure anything hard.
Here's my first attempt to do so:
You tried to wash me with the energy of your rage.
Rather than rinse it off, I let it soak into my bones.
A tingling source of creativity lives in me now.
I will birth a million poems from this well.
That last line Jae! Fantastic where your thoughts went with this.