The best way to learn a language is to move where people speak it. The best way to learn to swim is to jump in and get wet. And the best way to get your wordsmithing on is to immerse yourself in poetry.
Poetry is a special kind of reading – it’s words on paper that produce an emotional, sensory experience. Whether it is Shakespearian love sonnets, Frost-y odes to nature, Hughesian societal reflections or Rumi-esque spiritual wisdom, poetry takes us to that place in the mind where words rule, and their meanings intertwine and spark each other. Where ideas are knocked loose and our imaginations begin to take over. In fact, if you’re practicing your free writing and making time for your craft, I’d even go so far as to say that if you add poem a day, it’ll keep the writer’s block away!
Here are a few to get you going!
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
From Essential Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks
Playing Banjo
Then put the banjo back in its case.
Close door against the city.
Make a rural sound. Be my key.
Close down the bar. Sing a round.
Let the fiddler be stoned in the alley,
the mandolinist pinball long hours.
Learn over and over. Still the needle,
return to the solo, parcel out headaches.
Pay for the room, measure the silence,
run the notes. Play poorly for family
in your manner. Live far away. Drift.
Love everybody. Sound best alone
in a minor key. Play it right. Turn
your head when you have forgotten
and suddenly a note pierces through
like someone far calling your name.
Run the Red Lights
Driving in the Rain
This is when the world could end—about three
in the afternoon on a blacktop in Mississippi,
the sky darkening as if conjuring night, black thoughts
flying from the woods like crows or rattlesnakes in the grass,
and in that dark cathedral of clouds a purple god strikes
at the aimless world—trucks hauling potato chips,
children swarming in overgrown yards, grandmothers dreaming of days
in the kitchen, canning peaches or making blackberry
jam while the world goes wild with summer. O take me
away to another shore, a newfound land, my America, sea
of dust washed by the thunder gods, roads so narrow the oaks curl,
make a tunnel like the one between worlds—
the one we see and the one we think we see and the one
hiding behind every tree on the road’s dark bone.
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Asalamalkium wrwb ,
I like to write poems and was wondering where can I send them .
JazakAllah khair
Fatima khan
Sample of my work .
Beautiful woman
A beautiful woman in my eyes is a woman who has a character who has a purpose .
Who has thirst for knowledge
And is eager to learn .
and take on challenges as it comes
She knows her place she knows her worth
She stands for truth she stands to those above her.
She apologizes to others if she has made mistakes.
as she knows one thing she herself is hardly a saint .
She does not take insults nor gives it to others .
She wants others to succeed and is happy for those all around her .
She loves unconditionally whether it’s a family ,friends or colleagues or even a complete stranger may it be .
She sticks for them even if the whole world leaves them behind .
As she is just no ordinary woman but is proud to be one of her kind .
She knows she does not need approval of any one but just one one Mighty above her .
She lives every day enjoying the sunlight
Soaking herself in brightness and spreading to those around her .
She is a character and lives her life to the fullest.
Realizing every second is passing and every minute is so precious
She stays away from gossip and malice
And works on her own faults and gives her mind some needed mental breaks.
She smiles a lot and spreads her sweetness around .
She moves around fulfilling her goals oblivious to those who put her down
She is beautiful to herself when she looks into the mirror
Not because of her outside features but the beauty inside her
This beautiful woman is the real beauty
as no matter how old she gets will turn out fine .
As she has finally known the secret
that beauty does not cost you dime
but rather inside a human heart ,which is given by the Divine !