Constantly Risking Absurdity

It's been nearly a year and a half since I've allowed myself to pick up an pen and write from my heart. Truthfully, I've come to realize that though I busied myself with an abundance of school work, reading materials, research projects, money making endeavors, and housework, I spent most of my time mourning a loss. 

When I entered my freshman year at Waynesburg University, technically speaking, I was a psychology major. Nevertheless, when I stepped foot inside a building by the name of Buhl Hall, I discovered something magical, a world unlike I had ever encountered. I discovered the classroom of Jill Moyer Sunday. She helped mold, shape, prune, and shake up an ability I for years took for granted: the ability to create via the written word. And ever since I traded the comfort and safety I felt while beneath her wings for a life away from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, I've felt lost. 

The summer before my sophomore year, I felt my words slowly withering away. By the time fall had arrived, the fire that had so vibrantly lit my fingers on fire, scorching beauty across page or computer screen, died out. I felt that without the walls of the classrooms that shaped me, without the mentor who so gracefully built me up, I was nothing. Somewhere, deep down, I thought I had abandoned the best thing that had ever happened to me, and that because of it I no longer deserved to feel the sense of contentment that writing had gifted to me.

Then, I met Dr. Barbour. On April 29th, Kathy Barbour walked into the Fiction and Poetry Workshop at Hanover College, mop and broom in hand, a boombox on her hip. Her pale blue eyes danced inside her sockets, as she told us that before we could begin May term, we had to be initiated. She also told us that in order to be successful during the course of the class, we had to "constantly risk absurdity." 

And so she tossed us kitchen utensils, mops, brooms and the like, and told us that we had to make music with them. She danced around the room to a groovy, island tune, twirling a mop as though it were a loyal dance partner. This went on for another twenty minutes or so. Yes, we felt completely stupid. But little did we know, Kathy Barbour was a genius. 

She was doing was lowering our inhibitions, easing our tension, and erasing our expectations. By God, she broke the ice with a jackhammer of crazy, but it sure did the trick. By the second day of class, we were pouring out raw, uninhibited soul through our words to one another. We were eagerly drinking up the style, rhyme, and rhythm, allowing the brilliance of one another to reverberate through our bodies, and spark our own sense of what it meant to create.

 I'd like to thank Dr. Barbour. She opened my heart to writing, again. I now know that I never had to stifle the fire in my heart that yearned each and every day for a pen and paper. She reminded me of something I had long forgotten during the course of my nearly two year hiatus; my talent never came from a place, it comes from within me.

So without further ado, here's a poem I wrote this morning, while sleep still clung to my lashes. Enjoy!

A Front Porch Kind of Night”

Purple petals flow against her lobes,

glowing strands of auburn hair catch her pearls.

She digs her bitten nails into the floral scarf

wrapped around her neck, a steady arch. 

The stem folds into her glasses,

a brilliant shade of blue.

She gazes out between 

the bundles of brush, huddled together, 

a pair of cardinals ruffle feathers, 

uplifting melting flakes of snow. Shuffle

their feet across the slush, beaks nibbling, lustful lips

longing to wander into full, icy hips.