Crafting Poetry One Syllable at a Time
Posted on August 23, 2020 by Colleen M. Chesebro
Aishwarya, from Kitty’s Verses, picked an excellent photo for this month’s photo prompt. There is so much to write about.
I chose to write a senryu this week. Senryu are untitled, but for this challenge we use titles to keep our posts straight.
I don’t know… this photo haunted me. There with so many poetic possibilities. Finally, I settled on the old saying, “You can’t go home again.” Those railroad tracks definitely lead to the unknown.
There’s something poetic about the first time you leave home. When you return, it’s never like it was before you left. Time marches on and our perspectives change. We view life through the lens of a fool’s paradise. You know, the feeling of happiness you hold onto because you’re ignorant of the negative aspects of a situation? It’s all part of the growing up process.
a fool’s paradise
journey into the unknown
never to return
©2020 Colleen M. Chesebro
Category: Authors Supporting AuthorsTags: #PhotoPrompt, Colleen's Syllabic Poetry, Senryu
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“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.”
—Dylan Thomas
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Colleen M. Chesebro is an American Poet who loves crafting paranormal fantasy and magical realism, cross-genre flash fiction, syllabic poetry, and creative nonfiction. Colleen sponsors a weekly syllabic poetry challenge, called Tanka Tuesday, on wordcraftpoetry.com where participants learn how to write traditional and current forms of haiku, senryu, haiga, tanka, gogyohka, tanka prose, renga, solo-renga, haibun, cinquain, Etheree, nonet, and shadorma poetry. Colleen's syllabic poetry has appeared in the Auroras & Blossoms Poetry Journal, and in “Hedgerow, a journal of small poems.” She’s won numerous awards from participating in the Carrot Ranch Rodeo, a yearly flash fiction contest sponsored by carrotranch.com. In 2020, she won first place in the Carrot Ranch Folk Tale or Fable category, with her story called “Why Wolf Howls at the Moon.” Colleen is a Sister of the Fey, where she pursues a pagan path through her writing. When she is not writing, she is reading. She also loves gardening and crocheting old-fashioned doilies into works of art.
This photo prompted a lot of good poems, including yours!
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Thanks, Liz. It’s all our different perceptions. I love these photo challenges. We all see something different.
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Yes! It’s also interesting to see which photos prompted the most fully engaged poems.
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Exactly! 😍
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Returning to what was is an adventure… it is the process.
Seeing ruins like those in Pompeii make me wonder how those lives might have been …
We are all just travelers in place and time 🙂
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And time marches on… ❤
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It was a good photo for a prompt. I guess we can’t know the future and what our journey’s will bring. Growing up we might be filled with idealism and foolish ideas, but maybe that’s better than not journeying at all.
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Exactly. I know people that never left the state they were born in… some haven’t left the city they born in. I kept thinking about hindsight, as well… how that factors into what we learn from our experiences. It was an excellent photo!
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Well done!
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Thanks, Sis. 😀
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I love it, because I always say that – you can’t go back, even if you do it will never be the same ❤
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Yes!! I agree. It’s never the same.
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Absolutely great Colleen puts me in mind of my favourite singer songwriter song Last Train Home. In this Imogen Heap songs about being trapped in adult life and wanting to escape to go home to her childhood
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How cool, Willow! I’ll check it out! 😍
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I hope you like it 💜
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This was a great photo with so many possibilities. I love your take on going home and venturing out into the world:)
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Thanks, Denise. I left a foster home at 18 and went into the Air Force. Home has always been where I hang my hat. I didn’t really ever want to go back. But so many people do. ❤
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Sorry to hear that, Colleen. I understand I never wanted to go back to my childhood home, just visits were all I could manage. You are right so many do want to though. For me, my home is what I created as an adult.
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Exactly… home is what we make it. ❤
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Your poem is beautiful and poignant, Sis. I reminisced about the time I left home. There were so many emotions coursing through me. Well done. ❤
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Awww, thank you. I felt the same way, Sis. It just doesn’t stay the same. ❤
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No. You’re right. ❤
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