POETRY FOR 30 DAYS IN APRIL DAY 6

Project Details

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

Day 6 Prompt

Finally, here’s our daily (optional) prompt. Our prompt yesterday asked you to take inspiration from another poem, and today’s continues in the same vein. This prompt, which comes from Holly Lyn Walrath, is pretty simple. As she explains it here:

Go to a book you love. Find a short line that strikes you. Make that line the title of your poem. Write a poem inspired by the line. Then, after you’ve finished, change the title completely.

I encourage you to read Walrath’s full post, which has some other ideas for generating new poems based on pre-existing text.

I used the Tao Te Ching 72nd verse

Hence the sage knows himself but does not display himself, loves himself but does not exalt himself.

Day 6 Poem

Hence the sage knows himself but does not display himself, loves himself but does not exalt himself/ Tao Te Ching verse 72

To know is to love

If it takes a lifetime

To look up from the page

And receive the inspiration

To describe what these eyes have seen

Is that failure

Follow a path

How do you know that the path

Will lead to a desired destination

Will the footsteps imprinted in the freshly fallen snow

Lead to home

Or the jaws of the leopard

Does the feeling of certainty

Come with a written guarantee

Reviewed by lawyers and philosophers

Or is it just a chemical imbalance

That caused visions from the afflicted

And led nations to kneel

A preference of quietude

Acceptance that the ending is unknown

Undetermined

That the accepted good

May just be the most insidious evil

Cloaked in the mindless praises

Of those who wished to be fooled

Of those who must always be on the side of right

Rather than common good

If the utmost wish is to see the wonders of life

Lift up the eyes from behind the page

Put down the pen

Forget waiting on inspiration

Open the eyes and see

The answers are simpler

And visible

Than what the stories of old have told

Reaching Out

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.