Thank you, Minerva Jones

Three words stood out in my inbox this morning: Creative Writing Prompts. And, I had to click, thinking maybe, just maybe, this e-mail held the inspiration I need to jump start my inevitably infamous literary legacy. Well, I may not be infamous (or even famous) yet, but thanks to the Poets and Writers magazine’s website, I am one step closer. Today, I was able to really work through my writer’s block in a significant way. I may not have written much, but I am focusing on the fact that I wrote. I wrote through the anxiety and the fear of failure and rejection to create something inherently beautiful. Inherently beautiful because writing is how I was designed to connect and communicate with the rest of the world.

Click here for the writing prompt for January 3, 2011. Poetry prompts are on Mondays; Creative writing prompts are on Thursdays.

Minerva Jones by Edgar Lee Masters

Writing in between the lines:

I am Minerva, the village poetess,

Known for the beautiful, dark words within my soul instead of

For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,

But the words I crave finally

Captured me after a brutal hunt.

Leaving tattered bits of delicate talent nestled between a balmy, paralyzing fear

And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up,

Desperate for any connection between pen and paper

Will some one go to the village newspaper,

And find the words I’ve left behind?

I thirsted so for love!

They longed so for creation!

My new poem:

new

I am the quiet woman

known for the beautiful, dark words within my soul.

But the words I crave finally

caved in on my fragile thoughts,

leaving tattered bits of delicate talent

nestled in a balmy, paralyzing fear,

desperate for any connection between pen and paper.

How do I once again unlock this passion

and find the words I’ve left behind?

They long for creation.

I long for peace.

Funny Findings

At a shopping mall in Missouri. At least someone wrote in the "of."

Another shopping mall in Missouri.

A Little Lawrence for the New Year

Green
by D.H. Lawrence

The dawn was apple-green,
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green
They shone, clear like flowers undone
For the first time, now for the first time seen.

Chance may have brought this poem and I together, but I think it was the one I needed today. With a quick skim of the page, my eyes already form a disconnect between the stanzas. They are too different to maintain a steady flow between themselves. I find myself being told two different stories, both beautiful, but one that seems to stand out more than the other.

Lawrence's use of pronouns in the second stanza instead of specific nouns (e.g., "the dawn," "the sky,") makes the subject become a generalization that the reader can fill in with his or her variation of "she." For some, they may carry on the idea of nature and the dawning of a new day. Others, however, may see a more literal she - a woman. Or perhaps, more accurately, the transformation of a girl to a woman.

Lawrence tells us that this mysterious she has "green" eyes that "shone, clear like flowers undone." People who are new to something are often said to be green, so this woman's eyes are new to the new world that awaits her after college, in the wake of her this-is-really-the beginning-of-my-life epiphany. She may be new to life, but her eyes are open and she longs for growth just like flowers opening their leaves to the sunlight for the first time. "Now for the first time seen" this woman is starting to see the world for what it really is as she decides to carve her own place in it.