All these years as a teacher, and I have never before tried to write poetry in April, outside of my classroom. The month came and went with hardly a notice. Maybe, I would think to myself, how do they do it? But only once, and then went on my way.

This year, one of the silver linings of the Coronavirus is that I have time to make new priorities. Thanks to Glenda Funk and Maureen Ingram in the March Slice of Life challenge, I got brave enough to dip my toes in. Now, I’m looking forward to swimming a lap every day with a new poetry mentor and challenge.

Today I wrote this poem because I was struck how elementary my comments always sounded. I truly am touched by all the poems I’m reading, but I’m just learning how to comment. I asked my husband this morning to tell me words he would use to describe a poem when it really speaks to his emotions and life. He gave me quite a list–cathartic, exposing, touched an open wound, healing, compelling, and more. I kind of forget now exactly which ones were his, but I used all of his words and added some more to it.

An Ode to #Verselove Poets

Wow!
Powerful!
Beautiful!
Lovely!

To my friends:
When I write these it doesn’t mean
I don’t love your poems,
that I’m not truly touched.
I am.

To myself:
But come on, Denise,
that’s all you write.
You are 62 years old.
Learn some precise language
for speaking about what you mean.
How about using a thesaurus?

Try…
striking
compelling
convincing
aced spelling

revealing
healing
appealing
got me dealing with my feelings

reflecting
connecting
respecting
collecting
wisdom from you, my mentors

exposing
imposing
disclosing
composing that closing

With your words
my soul you’re jabbing
my heart you’re stabbing
my mind you’re grabbing
my eyes I’m dabbing

Your poems are cathartic
for the arctic
sea within me
reminding me of open wounds
yet to be restored when
given your remedy