The Dangers of Writing Poetry

I have three more days left in my poem-a-day project for February. I am loving the prompts by the wry and witty Molly Fisk, loving the other poets in this online poetry group, and loving my poems and every minute spent writing them.

But here's the rub: I love them so much that once I've written my poem for the day and posted it to the group website, I'm so delighted with my poem that I have to go read it over a few dozen times, occasionally tinkering with it a bit, pruning a word here, adjusting a line break there, but mostly just admiring it on the page. And then I'm so pleased with myself that I find I have absolutely zero desire to accomplish anything else. After all, I WROTE A POEM TODAY! What more could the universe expect from me? Which would be fine except that I do have a class I'm teaching, students I'm advising, writers I'm mentoring, an article I'm supposed to be revising. But - but - but - I WROTE A POEM TODAY! Isn't that enough?

In fact, I even wrote a poem about how amazing it is to write a poem, about how each new poem that comes into being is one new small wondrous thing that now exists in the universe:

What There Is

Here's what's in the universe,
at least the part of it that we can see:
70 billion trillion stars.
And right here, 
in front of me,
these scribbled lines
that didn't exist 
ten minutes ago.
Because of me 
the universe
has something in it 
now
that wasn't there 
before.
70 billion trillion stars - 
and this poem.

So it's good that the short month of February is coming to an end, and that I'll have to find new ways of generating creative joy for myself in March. But for now, I'll just say: hooray for poetry! And for the chance to write it! Here's one more poem because I can't resist. Prose is in my future. But today, and tomorrow, and two days after that: poetry. . . 


Talent Scouts

It's not that I even want to be a movie
star. I just want to be discovered,

to be in the self-checkout lane at King Soopers,
perplexed by how to find the produce code

for my ginger root, or putting my credit card
the wrong way into the gas pump at Conoco,

or picking up poop in one of the bags I carry
in a canister attached to the end of the dog's leash,

and then, in that moment, someone is there,
saying, "You! That way you wrinkle your

forehead! That slump of your shoulders!
The twist of your lips! The soulfulness radiating

from your haunted eyes! We've searched the
whole world over, but it was you all along

we were seeking. It was you, 
it was you, it was you."