1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all, 
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel 
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail; 
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war; 
elect an honest man; decide they care 
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor. 
Some men become what they were born for. 

Sometimes our best efforts do not go 
amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to. 
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow 
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

—Sheenagh Pugh
https://sheenagh.webs.com
https://sheenagh.wixsite.com/sheenaghpugh

Please forgive the masculine gender references throughout the poem. Pugh wrote this in the 1980”s (or earlier).

Note: Next Read Around is:
March 26, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

Sheenagh Pugh’s poem, Sometimes, is another nice poem to keep in your pocket and read in those moments when you slip into sorrow and need a reminder that there is more to life, especially when the current is rough or the the boat seems inevitably headed for treacherous falls; or when the damage is done and you have to pick up the pieces of your life and go on. Even when things go well, we often stay in a holding pattern “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” This idea is based on a belief that punctuates the flow of  life into cycles that end on a bad note. It is true that “bad” times will eventually follow “good” times and our complacency in life is sometimes wholly disrupted by some traumatic event or experience. But for every one of those, and even for a set of those in a row, there are also glorious sunrises and kind gestures; there is the indelible calm after the storm and the deep sense of blessing for some precious little thing we never would have noticed were it not for the tragedy. The onset of spring is the best time for us to re-punctuate the sequence of events in life and let the sun melt whatever frozen field of sorrow might be lingering from the past.

Prompt Menu

1. Recall a time when you were fully prepared for things to go from bad to worse. Write about that feeling and how it manifests in you, Consider times when such fears can serve well (when the context is specific and actionable-like winterizing the house), or times when the dread is vague and insoluble (the dark cloud overhead experience).

2. Recall a time when you expected things to go badly and were surprised that they turned out well.

3. Although Pugh’s poem was written in the 1980’s, it could have been written in January 2021. Describe how our last election, our some election in the past, buoyed you in life or seemed to offer a positive change. If you wish, choose some other social or political event that made you feel optimistic about life.

4. War can be both literal and metaphoric. Consider a time when people (nations, groups, family members, inner parts) stepped back from war in a way that personally affected you. Describe how that happened and what changed for you.

5. Describe someone you think is doing what they were born for? What makes you think they might fit that criteria? What do you believe you were born for? You can start the writing with the prompt: I was born for… Or: I was born for this:

6. Contrast a time when your best effort went amiss with a time when it did not and went well. What was different about you between the two. 

7. Explore the different forms of appreciation that you might have toward a good that comes to you without effort versus a good that you worked to get and obtained. Contrast that with the experience of working toward something that goes amiss. Write a poem about what you discover. 

8. Pugh describes sorrow as a frozen field. What metaphor might you use to describe lingering sorrow? Write a poem using the logic of that metaphor to describe what might change it or how it might shift within the context of the metaphor. If you prefer, choose another, one you would prefer to pass rather than linger (guilt, grief, resentment, indignation, disappointment, frustration, etc.)

9. As usual, write about whatever else inspires you form the poem or from life.