One Great Way to Write a Poem

July 17, 2013

I love the whimsy of tweetspeak’s Take Your Poet to Work Day, but since I’m not going to work today (yay for summer vacation!) and since I’m feeling lazy (did I already say summer vacation?) I’m not about to cut out a poet, colour it, glue it on a stick, and take a picture of it (seriously, I mean summer vacation!).

Instead, in honour of today’s Take Your Poet to Work Day, I decided to write a poem using an exercise shared by Al Andrews in a post for Storyline. In “Why It’s Often Better to Say Less,” Al read and re-read a single page from an essay, underlining the significant words, interacting with them, crossing out any unnecessary words, and then seeing what emerged. I loved his example and decided to try it for myself.

Here is a page from a sermon I wrote a couple of years ago called “God grant me patience”—on the left is my sermon, on the right is the same page with the words underlined and crossed out:

aprilyamasaki.com // One Great Way to Write a Poem
Here’s the poem that emerged:

In Praise of Patience

fast food or slow food?
be patient.
a sprint or a marathon?
be patient.
waiting or working?
be patient.

in Greek
patience is “makrothumeo”
literally
— “long in spirit” —

enduring,
persevering,
long-suffering,

oh the riches of God’s Kindness!
the Spirit who’s long in spirit with me.

Well as a poem it certainly won’t win any awards, but I love this exercise for the way it helps me focus on key words, and it’s one great way at least to start writing a poem.

Writing/Reflection Prompt: Experiment with this exercise for yourself.

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9 responses

Dolores Martens

Jul 17, 2013

Being the non-poet type, I think this is amazing!

Reply
1. April Yamasaki
  
  Jul 17, 2013
  
  Yes, it’s a great exercise–you might surprise yourself if you ever give it a try. After all, as poet William Stafford says, “Everyone is born a poet – a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words.”
  
  Reply
Lyla Willingham Lindquist

Jul 17, 2013

Love what you did here.

And thanks for sharing our whimsy. 🙂

Reply
1. April Yamasaki
  
  Jul 17, 2013
  
  It’s a pleasure, and thanks for your comment. By the way, I googled take your poet to work day 2012 to see if it’s been done before, but I guess not and I just had to laugh when google gave me results for take your pet to work day 🙂
  
  Reply
:-)

Jul 17, 2013

How hilarious that it’s “Take Your Poet to Work Day”!

Just this morning, I could feel God waking me up with a poem. I’ll have to share it with you later, April. I actually was tempted to title it “April” because it has a spring/resurrection theme. But funny enough, I was drawn to a title synonymous to “Emmanuel”. I really didn’t plan either of those themes; funny how they fit togther :-).

In fact, this morning I was so struck by how it can seem that God is writing something to me as I’m writing a poem [but no, I don’t do that weird automatic writing thing 🙂 ]. Amazing (sometimes astounding) meanings at times come out that I really never could have planned. I’m not saying it’s really about me at all, but that God can write amazing poetry through us. I believe that poetry can be a very prophetic language; a gracious gift from God to little us.

Your Patience poem has such beautiful simplicity. The form of it inspires me.

I think of the Spirit’s fruits. I think of the beauty and gentleness of God.

Reply
1. April Yamasaki
  
  Jul 17, 2013
  
  Oh yes please, do share your poem with me.
  I love your description of poetry as a gracious gift 🙂
  Your comment about form reminds me of Betty Warland’s book, “Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing” where she talks about “scoring” as the way words are placed on a page. For this poem, scoring it as a longish poem with (relatively) shorter lines reflects patience as long in spirit.
  
  Reply
:-)

Jul 18, 2013

Thank you! Breathing the Page; what an excellent concept!

Reply
Laura

Jul 19, 2013

This is a fantastic exercise! I’m in the midst of writing a book, a sort of spiritual memoir of early parenting, and I get frustrated when I slip into God-speak, the theological terms that means lots to us in the business but glaze over the eyes of most readers. I’m inspired to try this with a few troublesome chapters…thank you!

Reply
1. April Yamasaki
  
  Jul 19, 2013
  
  Thanks, Laura – I’d love to hear how this works for you, and I hope it helps with your book!
  
  Reply

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