As World Poetry Day approaches this Saturday, we saw it fitting to feature this beautiful blog post from one of our wonderful faculty, poet Kelly DuMar. Enjoy, get your creative juices flowing, and stay sane in these increasingly uncertain times!
If you find this prompt invigorating, consider signing up for Kelly’s half-day workshop on Saturday, March 28, Image-Map Your Mind and Heart: Writing Poetry & Prose from Personal Photos.
“How is it that I became a writer? It wasn’t a likely thing for me to have done, nor was it something I chose, as you might choose to be a lawyer or a dentist. It simply happened, suddenly, in 1956, while I was crossing the football field on the way home from school. I wrote a poem in my head and then I wrote it down, and after that writing was the only thing I wanted to do.” ~ Margaret Atwood
A writing life may be planned by some, but for many of us, like the hugely successful author Margaret Atwood, it’s a happy accident born of impulse, excitement and naiveté.
“I didn’t know that this poem of mine wasn’t at all good, and if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have cared. It wasn’t the result but the experience that had hooked me: it was the electricity. My transition from not being a writer to being one was instantaneous. . .” ~Margaret Atwood
Atwood didn’t ask anyone for permission to be a writer, and she didn’t doubt the quality of her writing. She trusted the evidence of her process. She wholeheartedly believed she was a writer because of the way the act of writing made her feel.
Today, it might be heartening to write about the creative power of certainty. One thing I am certain about: creative writing excites and nourishes me–late into the night, and early on into morning. Amidst all the clamorous calls of uncertainty from the around the world and close to home, I know the act of writing brings meaning and beauty, challenge and renewal into my day. And, I trust that, in any moment that I can’t think of something interesting to write, I can look at one of my photos, and truth and beauty spring into words.
This spiny jewel box shell I found washed up from the sea is something I believe in. I know I don’t want to live a safe life with my heart safely locked inside my chest. To love is to risk opening myself to relationship, to intimacy, to vulnerability and loss and all the forces flooding my life I cannot control.
Here’s something else I’m certain about: Eggs. Like these from a whelk egg case. New beginnings. The eternal cycle of life: birth, death, and the daily miracle of reproduction. I will die. Generations I’ve given birth to will survive me. Generations will always be creatively connected to me, as I am to all those who gave life to me.
And I believe in serendipity. I trust in the mysterious beauty of nature’s ability to create unity, by accident or design, and I believe in the ability of human beings to make meaning and purpose from all the accidents and unplanned acts we encounter moment by moment. Like a bird made of sticks the tide washed up one morning from the Gulf.
I wonder what is something you wholeheartedly believe in?
I hope you’ll write about that today.
Here’s an idea to develop your writing practice and personal insight right now:
1. Find one to three personal photos of people, places or objects that seem to whisper something you are certain about. You may not know what this certainty is until you step into the three-dimensional world of the photo and write.
2. Make a spontaneous list of words or phrases describing, not just what you see, but what the picture signifies. What are the values you believe in that the photo embodies?
3. After you have your list of beliefs this photo has inspired, compose a creative statement of certainty announcing your beliefs in a paragraph of prose or in poetic lines. This I believe. . .
4. Give your writing a working title.
4. Consider who might want to share in your discoveries. Me, for one! kellydumar@gmail.com Share your writing and photos with others who may very much need, right now, to be inspired by certainty.
The Margaret Atwood quotes above are from an article in the New York Times, March 11, 2002, “Writers on Writing; A Path Taken With All The Certainty Of Youth.” If you want to read the entire essay, you can find it at here.
About Author Kelly DuMar:
Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright, and writing workshop leader. She’s published three poetry and prose chapbooks, including her most recent, “girl in tree bark,” published by Nixes Mate. “All These Cures” is published by Lit House Press, and “Tree of the Apple,” by Two of Cups Press. Kelly’s poems are published in Bellevue Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Tiferet, Crab Fat and more. In addition, her plays have been produced around the US and are published by dramatic publishers.
She produces the Our Voices Festival of Boston Area Women Playwrights, held at Wellesley College, now in its 13th year, and she produces the annual Boston Writing Retreat and weeklong summer Play Lab for the International Women’s Writing Guild where she is a longstanding board member. Kelly inspires readers of #NewThisDay – her daily blog – with mindful, photo-inspired reflections on writing life on the Charles River. You can learn more by visiting Kelly’s website.