REDISCOVERING CREATIVITY POEMS
In each session of REDISCOVERING CREATIVITY we have been inviting participants to explore a theological concept through a creative medium (drawing, painting, music, pantomime, etc.) This past week we did several poetry exercises. We each had 10 minutes to write on a certain theme– and then we shared our poems with one another. I love this kind of speed-creating. And sometimes the results are surprisingly beautiful or insightful. Below are the exercises and my two poems. We found it helpful to have ambiant music playing in the background.
Gratitude & Abundance
Consider how the Maker lavishes you with abundance and generosity. What experiences and sensations are you most grateful for? What objects or activities do you most closely associate with the wonder of living in God’s world? Jot words and phases as they come to mind and weave a simple poem stringing words and sensations together.
What moves me?
-Babies and that fresh innocent fragrance
The ocean just before sunset
Birds flying in formation
above wet sand reflecting like glass
What moves me?
Unlikely heroes who exercise strength despite all odds
A Strong black woman—leading with quiet confidence
New immigrants working hard to make a better life
For themselves and their children
She is Fridah Kahlo as a waitress:
Compact, articulate, with friendly brown eyes.
And she speaks the language she is just learning
With perfect diction—
her head full of memories of Mexico City
and the family and friends she has left behind
What moves me?
The laughter of children. Chocolate.
Full-bodied fruit forward inky wines
That climax with a long velvet finish.
The warmth of my wife as she lays beside me
Curled up to conform to the shape of my body touching hers.
What moves me?
Dance music. Thunderstorms. Spring rain. Grilled meats.
Flamenco music. The chime of church bells. The smell of fresh laundry.
Early morning coffee and the gift of eternal presence.
Moving on from your traps & Saboteurs
Each of us has ways of limiting, trapping or sabotaging God’s generativity and freedom in our lives. What would you tell your internal captor if you had the courage to move on from the habits and thought patterns that trap your generativity and freedom? Write a poem of complaint in which you acknowledge that you have been held captive AND confront the saboteur within. Its time to fight. Tell your shadow self its over and you are moving on.
You Bastard!
How long you have kept me from my true destiny
Tying me up and pulling me down
Into a dungeon of worry and anxiety
And an unyielding sense that my efforts are never good enough
–because reality never conforms to your distorted view of perfection
that masquerades as the ultimate goodness.
Dark phantom of my mind,
Haunting me with doubts about my worth and capabilities.
I am that prince that you seek to cage
Because when I am released I will hunt you down
And exterminate every pretense of diminished self
That feigns humility and shallow holiness.
The true self does not wrap my intestines in knots.
You are the cramping, the indigestion, the gas, the headaches,
The sleepless nights that have robbed me
of my true freedom,
Child wonder
Lucidity
And the breath of mystery that is beyond words.
I say be gone.
I will arise to embrace my rightful place
As a child of the beloved.
