Make Visible: Organization
I’m a poet with a particular point of view. In these next blog posts I’ll post poems on different subjects from my point of view. Each poem is an expression, through me, of inspiration or Spirit or emotion. What you see in this light is what you bring to the poem.
What is it about staying organized? It’s a noble pursuit, so they say. It’s so hard to get and stay organized. A poem can be about anything, anything at all, or even nothing at all. This is my poem about organization.
Disorganized
If I was truly organized
I’d know where everything was
every last paper
every last book.
I’d pay my bills on time,
find the keys
and my favorite lipstick.
But bills pile high on the dresser
my desk has layers to excavate
can’t find my slippers.
You tell me organizing is easy.
In a minute I’ll lose my pen,
then this poem will be over.
© Anne Westlund
- Disorganized a huge mess (Photo credit: Yuba College Public Space)
Come back on Friday, May 31 for Make Visible: Home
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.”~Robert Bresson, French Film Director
RoadWriter 
Well, yes, losing one’s pen is a perfectly wonderful way to end a poem … nicely done.
Anne, I love this. I can so relate. Absolutely adore the ending.
Thank you, Widdershins and Peggy!
I sent in one poem in 2000 to poetry.com. Lo and behold, I received a letter (is this a shock?) saying I was a semi-finalist. 2000. Remember that. I lost the authorization form, but that was okay, as they contacted me via email to say I could authorize it online. That’s right, no legal signature required; all I had to do was respond to the email. I was thrilled at first to receive the letter, and almost believed it. I had mailed in a poem to a group with a similar name though, in high school (this was the mid-eighties) and after the pleasant fuzzies had worn off, I remembered vaguely that the letter seemed almost identical. It’s 2003 now, and I have not sent them anything since. (Well, except the poem I sent in yesterday under my dog’s name to see what would happen, and to qualify for the Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest (see http://www.winningwriters.com/contestflomp.htm ), which is a contest essentially mocking poetry.com and the likes. I wonder if the US Postal Service will deliver mail to Stormy the Dog at my address. We will see.) Anyway, even though I have not sent them anything since 2000, I am still receiving offers via snail mail and email offering publication in their anthologies and Poet of the Year awards if I come to their convention. Now please, how can I be a Poet of the Year for one poem submitted over two years ago? Please. It may not be illegal (though I view the email authorization with suspicion), but it is morally criminal. Especially to minors.
Sounds like your dog is very creative! Poetry.com’s policies leave something to be desired. I think it’s pretty much a scam or at the very least a vanity press, where you essentially pay to have your work published. I suggest you submit your work to legitimate sites and publishers. You can do a search for Poetry.com “problems” or “complaints.” You can do this for any other site or publisher. It’s good to do research anyway on places where you submit your work.
Anne
Yeah, one of the poems that helped me win was based on a poem called “My Life by Water” by Lorine Niedecker, and the other one was T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” I copied the way he took a passage from Shakespeare and kind of corrupted it a little bit. I did the same with Romeo and Juliet.