Tag: Confessional

Part Two – A Confessional: I Write Imperfect Poetry and Prose

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

Fave Chicken Pic (This is part two of a two-part post. Part One may be read here. You may consider reading it first. Thank you for being here for my imperfect poetry and prose. Grateful to have you here.) And so I write. Today is Monday and I want to write as honestly as I strived to on Sunday. This is not about false humility or humbled low-bowing for the sake of, well, humble low-bowing in and of itself. Let’s admit it: Writers humbling themselves can be a spectator sport on the interwebs. And often it is difficult to discern  the writer’s spirit. The authenticity. (Now that’s an over-used word.)

I know in my deep places that my craft, my art, my writing, well, they need time to ripen and mature. I need to read more poetry, write more poetry and listen to the wisdom of beautifully gifted writers. I need to pay better attention. Read more excellent fiction. Sit in the wake of the backdraft of the giants.

And yet, I am still Elizabeth. There is no changing that. I am still the woman who burns with passion for seeing the world in a beautiful, grace-laced way. I am the writer who hears God wooing me into a world of words, with His own. I am a long-processor and so I need to write. Everything that I see, hear and experience needs to run back through the sieve of the pen. But it doesn’t. One cannot sustain quite that level of writing. Or I can’t. But I understand an event a bit better after I write. Most writers do. This is not unique to my writing life.

It is important for me to continue to remind myself and others that I was not always bound to the pen or bent on paying close attention. I have missed a million small moments. Beauty has gone unnoticed. Miracles of creation, tucked into the intricate places have been seen by the attentive ones. But not by me.

I am awake now. I am paying attention. Going digging. Searching for mystery, miracle and wonder. Sharing it with others. And savoring a thousand intricately nuanced moments. Looking for the hidden. And writing toward a more perfectly crafted poem. Bending in to learn to show you in more eloquently written prose.

And so I write.

Expectantly. Honestly. Awake.

I am writing my poetry. My prose.

For us.

A Confessional: Why I Write Imperfect Poetry ( & Prose) – Part One

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

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Sunday feels like a good day to write a confessional blog post. And when you tell another writer you are going to write said piece, you have some built in accountability. AKA, there is no turning back. I told Esther on Voxer that I was working on this in my head. That I was trying to get it out on paper or on a screen. Anywhere but inside of me.

I am sitting in a wicker chair. One that holds me like cupped hands. The mountains present themselves before me, like a movie screen painted and prepared for an audience. Artificially beautiful. But realer than real. And I am down the road from the church I attended this morning, as a guest. I can still smell the holy and hear the hallowed hymns. The stone and wood and worship linger in the air. My soul feels a lingering in the confessional we spoke. I prayed for the church today. It feels like a particularly important time to come clean.

I am not a great poet. I am not a great writer. I don’t know where I am in the bell curve of learning and honing my craft. But honestly, I am just a mediocre writer at best. But I have the fire in my belly and a passion under the folds of my wrinkling skin to write. Hiding out is an option. Always.

Giving up is always an option. I have an old computer which I could heave over the side of the mountain and life would go on. (Poetry is all about specificity. I would tell you just how old this Mac is but I truly do not recall….it is THAT old.) See the ellipsis back there. That is a taboo in the guidebooks of some writers.

Let’s face it. You can go other places for richer writing. Poetry, certainly, which shows more and tells less. Words that reach deeper with less adverbs. Lines which travel deeper into the beautiful. Verses which sing sweeter and lift you higher into the holy.

But my craft and my art are simply dressed in their everyday ordinary. I am honing and grooming them. Hoping for leaps of growth. Trusting that I will not remain in my writing where I reside this day.

But honestly. I am flawed as a writer. Imperfect. But I am flawed as a parent. Imperfect in my mothering. And certainly I fall short as a daughter to a mother suffering from dementia. My house could be cleaner. My food burned less often. My time spent more wisely. My morning devotions  could be longer.

But grace attends me when I write and when I breathe and live. And tells me to continue. No, encourages me to press on. Perfecting my imperfections.

My mother has dementia. Often her speech borders on faint mumbling. But I listen. I would not stop. She has something to say. And she is alive and living and wants to enter in. To tell what she sees. How this life feels and  how it smells. She wants and needs to process her living.

And so do I.
And so I write imperfect poetry. And prose
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Please join me tomorrow for Part Two.