Free Writing with Margaret Simon, April 14, 2024

What would I write if I opened the channel? Who am I as a poet? Like Angie, (maybe more than Angie), I don’t believe. But Margaret asked me to write for ten minutes, and I am sorely out of practice. What unique world do I inhabit that gives me permission to be? What poetic devices do I have and can use if no one prompts me to use them? Repetition? Repetition? Repetition? And what’s the difference between that and assonance? No, not assonance—anaphora. Rhyme? Time for rhyme.

I would never share this mess and I’ve only been writing for four minutes. Where is my channel? Dried up like the California aqueduct in a drought. Brittle petrified mud cakes line the mote bottom—no alligators. No loons, no moon to shine on the waters of creativity. No men in black swinging over on a rope to save me from myself. But that will do.

It’s my mote and I am enough