Wordsmith Studio's 3rd Anniversary continues with Week #2 of our blog hop. This week's prompt relates to the overall theme of the anniversary--Homecoming. The twist for the blog hop is to relate Homecoming to your writing experiences. I'm going to approach this topic using two subjects that I write about frequently--grief and jazz.
I have mentioned before that my poetry writing journey began out of a grief experience. Years before that, I started attending a grief support group. I had never been one to talk about my feelings so I was what is known as a delayed griever. In other words, I had experienced several losses and not really dealt with them. When my mother died, the pot boiled over and I found a wonderful group, with which I now volunteer (How's that for doing a 360?)
I have told the group a number of times that I firmly believe that I would have never started writing poetry if I had not done the grief work. It taught we the value of telling my story and gave me permission to do so. It also taught me that there are strong emotions tied to many memories and when you go back to those events you may feel those emotions. I learned that that is OK and that I can deal with those situations.
The jazz poetry takes me back in time in a couple of different ways. When I was growing up, television was filled with variety shows and talk shows. Jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and countless others often were on multiple shows in a week, perhaps even a day. They already were icons. When I watch clips on You Tube, I have firsthand memories of some of those shows. My interest in jazz also has allowed me to meet some of these performers when they were younger, to learn of their struggles and the contributions that they made to the music to reach iconic status.
Often, I am surprised by the memories that my writing triggers. In fact, I have had one of those experiences during this month's Poem-A-Day Challenge. I'll probably have another before the month is over. That's OK. I've learned to let the writing lead the way.
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I'm going to take next week off. I'll jump back into the blog hop Sunday, April 26.
I am a poet and photographer who likes sports, jazz and art inspired by other art. I served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the early 1970's and was assigned to the Computer Sciences School in Quantico, VA. I have published a chapbook of grief poems, I Keep You with Me. My work also has appeared in publications such as Thorny Locust Magazine, core. zine,The Enigmatist, Veterans' Voices and Kansas Time + Place An Anthology of Heartland Poetry. My visual art pieces combine poetry and photographs, and have been most recently displayed at InterUrban ArtHouse, Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center, Buttonwood Art Space, and The Smalter Gallery.
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