Finding Grace in Between

First Mentor Poem

Grace                                                
JOY HARJO
                                    For Darlene Wind and James Welch
I think of Wind and her wild ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway in the cursed country of the fox. We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze imaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks. The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fences, crashed our thermostat dreams, and we couldn't stand it one more time. So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment walls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us, in the epic search for grace. 

Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a season of false midnights. We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easy as honey. And one morning as the sun struggled to break ice, and our dreams had found us with coffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80, we found grace.

I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance. We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the hope of children and corn. 
​
I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw. We didn't; the next season was worse. You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south. And, Wind, I am still crazy. I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it. 

Source: Academy of American Poets at poets.org

Poem Prompts #1

We continue to crowd source prompts today. This exercise allows for surprise and spontaneity.  After reading each poem, participants posted a word, phrase, image, or first thought that came to the mind.  Writers then DIY'ed their own writing prompts!  Choose something that immediately speaks to you -- write a poem about: 

cheap apartment walls
the wind and her wild ways
picking yourself up
the [memory of the] dispossessed
what went down slow as honey
having nothing to lose and losing it anyway
whether or not you deserve grace
imaginary frozen buffalo

wind
coyotes and rabbits
I went south
white buffalo ghost
I say Grace was a woman
country of the fox
the promise of children and corn
 grace…balance

Second Mentor Poem

Unlike objects, two stories can occupy the same space
CHARLES PEEK
 
Out along the last curve in the brick walk
the grass has begun to green,
with the freezing cold and coming snow
its certain fate.
 
The cranes make the same mistake,
fields of red capped heads attest their arrival
just before the worst blizzard of winter
makes it impossible to tell the field from the river.
 
And we, too, have known these mortal mishaps,
miscalculated our time, found ourselves out of step,
arriving too early, staying on too late,
misjudging the nearness, the vengeance of the storm.
 
The cranes, the grass, they tell us:
this can go on for millions of years.

Source: poetryfoundation.org

Poem Prompts #2

In a poem, tell me about:

mortal mishaps
miscalculating time
being out of step
arriving too early staying on too
​     late
​this can go on for millions of years
         .

misjudging the nearness
misjudging the vengeance of ​
red capped heads attesting arrival
if you can pull someone back
​the vengeance of a storm

For Discussion

November
AMY LOWELL
 
The vine leaves against the brick walls of my house,
Are rusty and broken.
Dead leaves gather under the pine-trees,
The brittle boughs of lilac-bushes
Sweep against the stars.
And I sit under a lamp
Trying to write down the emptiness of my heart.
Even the cat will not stay with me,
But prefers the rain
Under the meagre shelter of a cellar window.