Friday Writings #217: Your Message to the World

  

 

Dearest Word Weavers,

Lately I’ve been looking through my prolific output of blogged poems, to see which ones might be worth collecting in a book. Or maybe they need different books with different themes. So many are about the trivia of my personal life! That doesn’t necessarily make them ‘bad’ poetry, or uninteresting – but I wonder what I have to describe which other people haven’t already experienced and come to terms with. What, I ask myself, do I have to say that is worth hearing? 

And is it necessary to say different things in different poems – new things? Hmm, perhaps, if each of those things matters. But maybe some things bear repetition. 

I think of Mary Oliver, so widely beloved (including by me). She basically gave us the same message over and over again: pay attention to our beautiful earth; it’s worth it, it matters, it’s supremely important. I think that’s a message worth repeating; in fact I think we can’t repeat it often enough! And Oliver’s uniquely beautiful, direct, deceptively simple poetry made it new every time. She knew how to touch hearts!

 

What do you think? Perhaps sharing our human experiences is enough? Or is it better to use whatever platform we have to say something more arresting, and/or more vital? If you decided to try and deliver a crucial message to the world, what would it be?  

Optional prompt this week: Please (a) write for us your personal message to the rest of humanity, the thing you most need to communicate, on the assumption that all humanity will get to read it and take note, or (b) write about why you are not going to do that. 

Guidelines: Poetry or prose, old or new, on prompt or not, 369 words maximum (excluding title and notes), one post per person, link to that post below. Please link to us here at your post, please read what the rest of us submit and leave us some encouraging comments, and you are welcome to make comments or ask questions here too.  

Next Week: We will invite you to share writing which includes the following phrase: “the world is burning, but…”