Poetic Confusion/Bereft

  

     One hundred two and counting…That’s the number of poems and children’s rhymes that I have typed, printed, logged, and organized by genre-so far.  I knew this undertaking would be overwhelming, but I had no idea it would be this intense.  I am in the midst of an extraordinarily complicated task.  I guess I should have been organizing my works all along, instead of accumulating countless scraps of paper since…1988!  (Thankfully, for many of those years I only wrote sporadically.) Additionally, I am incorporating my current works, which adds to the enormity of the task.  There is barely room to eat at my kitchen table because it is 75% covered in my writer’s paraphernalia. (I don’t have a home office. Oh, woe is me.)

     We recently watched the movie “The Hours” in class, a story depicting author Virginia Woolf.  In one scene, she is beginning to write her novel, Mrs. Dalloway, with a pad and a pen, and surrounded by countless stacks of paper. I marvel at the level of talent, organizational ability, perseverance, and mental capacity that had to have been required at that time, when writers did not have the luxury of technology to make the task less daunting. I find it daunting, with technology.

     I wrote the following jingle as the result of a "writing Prompt" provided by my Creative Writing Professor. One evening, a man was sitting outside our classroom window peering in, arousing Professor's curiosity. Professor loved this, by the way. I hope you will find it amusing:

"Bereft"

He sat outside the classroom window, his index finger crooked.

I could not pry my gaze from him, from the moment I first looked.

He attempted to distract me, though, his motivation I did not catch.

I tried to discern his body language, while his plot, he thus did hatch.

He subsequently distracted the class. I no longer had control.

The students exited the room. It now resembles an empty hole.

In unison, they followed him. To where, I do not know.

So, now I’m sitting at my desk, bereft and all alone.

I decided to go after them, when, to my amazement, did I see,

They had all joined a marching band, which was headed right towards me!

The school declared a holiday, but failed to let me know.

My students quickly pulled me in, and marching I did go!