Becoming a Poet

I wanted the feedback of more experienced writers, so I began to attend a local writer's group. I recommend them. After about 6 months, the leader of our group, Larry, invited us to write poetry with him for a competition sponsored by a poetry group in West Virginia. Of course, I agreed to try since I am a team player. I won a few prizes, but more importantly I began to learn about the structure of poetry, and the way poems can hold images and emotions.

Sometimes I imitated a form, other times I got creative. When writing a poem, I imagine a scene, taste its flavor, smell its scents, see its colors - and then try to capture the sensations in words. I can still picture red and yellow slickers on my mentors in this one:

Alchemy

Women and men walk in time before me, shining in their aged raiment
as if the rain no longer falls, and the sun, newly emerged from clouds,
pierces through the late afternoon air.
It gleams, reflected from their yellow slickers.
Each one is a hero, or heroine, if you prefer,
I know this truly.
They have rescued children, sometimes themselves, from hell.
They have pushed the cellophane envelope of life,
when it tore, gently patched its fragile surface,
spit and sweat rolled between thumb and forefinger until adhesion formed.
Like alchemists of lead and gold,
running their fingers over the jagged rips, re-sealing the ancient folded form,
it becomes something changed yet familiar, altered to accommodate their needs,
like a growing womb that holds a child,
kicking its legs, punching its fists,
reshaping the sheltering cavity.
Their stories pull and warp my mind,
leaving residue like sticky strands of packing tape,
impregnated with strings that catch in your teeth and will not tear with ease.
Eradicate the strings at your peril —
pulling them off, they tear the skin of the corrugated cardboard box,
exposing the wrinkled interior,
leaving it weakened
almost useless.

Katherine A Minden © 2009