Please join in for Round 3 of Writing From The Inside Out by attending the June 2020 read-around sessions on Friday afternoons (it’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email.
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Read the poem
Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you
Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…
Use the selection of prompts below the poem
Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…
Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes
Next Read Around is June 12, 2020 at 4:00 PM PST
My Thoughts
It is normal to keep secret some of our fantasies and fears because we are afraid others might reject us if they knew or judge us harshly, or, worse, that we might suffer serious real world consequences, like arrest or physical punishment. But there are times when we want to confess our affection or speak our truth or share our hearts and we find ourselves stammering and anxious. This is perhaps more poignant now than any other time in our lives given the uproar of voices over long standing injustice and prejudice against people of color. This poem is about that tension between keeping and sharing our thoughts and feelings, especially when we feel our hearts are on the line. The reference to pebbles is from the Greek orator, Demosthenes, who cured his stuttering by speaking with stones in his mouth.
Lean Close is excerpted from my latest book of poetry: The Undiscovered Country: How To Live In Your Own Heart Land. It is one of the poems I read for the first of a 4-session book reading series on June 7, 2020. Below is a video recording of the book reading. Please join in for the series on the next three consecutive Sundays, June 14, 21, & 28 at 9:00 AM PST at the link under the video:
Lean Close
Where do my whispered secrets go
if there is no ear close enough to hear?
I don’t want to treat you like the last chance
or pin your hair with hope. And the pebbles
in my mouth are not enough to quell
the stammering tongue of my heart.
So, I never told you of my ghostly fear
or spoke of my kinship with the mist.
I just held out the rope without explanation,
hoping you would guess, after all the years
standing in for the opposition, that I want
to be tied down. Now that there is so little
to keep me anchored to the earth, the rope
may not be enough. You may need to
nail my feet to the floor and then lean
close enough for me to whisper my confession.
It is not reticence or embarrassment, but
the unspeakable holiness of my longing for you
that keeps the embers burning
even after the heartbreak of desire.
© Nick LeForce
All Rights Reserved
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Week 9 Prompt Menu
Think of someone on whom you “pinned your hopes.” For instance, parents sometime pin hopes on their children; lovers on beloved; seekers on a guru; etc). What hopes did you pin on them and what happened when you did? Or, conversely, what is it like when someone pins their hopes on you?
Describe the feeling of stammering or being tongue-tied because what you have to say is so important or precious to you that you cannot quite articulate it. Go into the moment and describe the physical sensations and the thoughts and feelings that get wrapped around the experience.
What ghostly fears do you keep to yourself that you wish you could share? Write about that inner experience of withholding and what is at stake?
Sometimes it is actually more risky to share our desires, (for instance, confession of affection or love for another; or a desire to pursue an interest that may be opposed by others, or make a request or set a boundary, etc.) than our fears. What things do you like or love (kinship with the mist) that you might be afraid to admit to others?
What irrepressible longing in you has survived hurt, heartbreak and betrayal?
Think of something that took you a long time to truly commit to and write about that journey to declaration. Or write about something that you have yet to declare or to which you have yet to fully commit. For instance, it took 10 years of sharing poetry in classes before I declared myself a poet. And I often feel that I need to take a stronger stand on environmental issues than I currently take.
Write from whatever else in the poem inspires you or from elsewhere in your life.
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(it’s free, fun and a great way to share in the virtual companionships kindred spirits)