For the month of April, I am participating in 30 days of #verselove poetry writing with Dr. Sarah J. Donovan's Ethical ELA.
Today's poetry inspiration was by Kim Johnson who suggests a mirror poem:
by taking a root from a poet's work and allowing it to breathe life into your own inspired creation. This may be in the form of a borrowed line, a repeating line, a section or stanza, or an entire poem.
My biggest challenge was to find a poem as my inspiration, there are so many poems that I love - and love them just as they are. Why would I dare to change them in any way?
This. Was. A. Very. Challenging. Prompt.
I finally went with a poem I love by Lucille Clifton, using the first two lines of her poem as the first two lines of mine, and the last stanza is entirely hers, too. I marked her words in bold.
i am embarrassed mostly
when i stand around
among friends, sometimes
i see myself
standing apart
watching
laughing
loving
when i stand around
among trees, sometimes
i feel both
weighty and
weightless
at once soaring with birds
tunneling with worms
when i stand around
among children, sometimes
i smell sweet joy
of curiosity cooking and
no limits on what else
might be added
to the stew
when i stand around
among family, sometimes
i taste my tears
wondering how i might
ever one day
bear their loss
when i stand around
among poets, sometimes
i hear a single music
in us, one note
dancing us through the
singular moving world
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