prompt 202 journal poem

journal poem   (easy as falling off a piece of cake)

this poem requires some time to do.   minimal fudging please, else you’ll miss out on the process and value (please again).

(about the what, how and why)

why?   (why first because it may better inform and color how and what)

a journal poem melts the boundaries between prose and poetry (and that’s a good thing to be comfortable about either way and to realize how they may combine and intermix).

a journal poem inherently has a sense of immediacy (intimacy?).

a journal poem is also: what to do when you have nothing to say!

the process?   (aka what and how)

each day write 1 or 2 or 3 sentences (no more than a short paragraph at the most please) (being simple, concise, matters here).   now then a “sentence” may be defined as a sentence, a phrase, even a single word, however and whatever comes to you in a brief selected description of your experience of that day.

(ask yourself this question: what do I want to say about today?)   your answer needn’t summarize your whole day, although it might.   your answer might be one word.   your answer might be a surprise, unexpected – just accept what comes when you drop that pebble in the water.   there is no wrong answer.   neither worry about being neat or poetic.   just write.

do this for about 5 (five) days.

then review.   edit.   clarify.   reword.   and please, edit language, not story (content).   while as a “prose poem” you may use sentences in your poem – let go adherence to the usual rules (this is still a poem at heart) (so is prose too, if you really look).   some broken syntax, single word sentences are all allowable.   OK?

will it all make sense?   two answers: we don’t care, and yes it will.   become more comfortable with the seeming abstract, seeming discontinuity of life and experience.   yet the “connections” of your writing will still be present (even if less obvious).   your life IS the connection, the continuity.   THAT is the poem.

a journal poem done in this manner may also become a discovery process, allowing associations to be more visible.   (think finger-painting!)   those small stray feelings, thoughts, images do matter to us.
see you in five days!

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