Make Visible: Workshop Poems

To continue our series on the Muse Online Writers Conference and our Poetry Workshop last fall, I present to you two poems that were written during the conference.

 

 

Even though the Poetic Muselings were “teaching” or facilitating the Poetry Workshop, we also “learned” from each other and the participants.  I always come up with new writing when I attend MuseCon and this time was no exception.  Here are two poems that literally wouldn’t have existed if not for our workshop and MuseCon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Persona Poems

 

 

 

Persona poems are poems that are written in a voice other than that of the author, where the author pretends to be someone else. ~Margaret Fieland

 

 

 

This is the prompt I used for my Persona Poem:

 

 

 

– The loneliest keys on the keyboard that never get used

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Question

 

 

 

 

 

Q?

 

I have a question.

 

Why am I so neglected?

 

You like E and A

 

and I far too much.

 

You never type Quasimodo or Quack

 

Or even misspell, using Q for K.

 

I’m in a quandary.

 

There’s not much I can do,

 

the letter Q

 

on your keyboard,

 

lonely, upset, tired.

 

I know I shouldn’t quomplain,

 

but I do.

 

Q?

 

 

 

 

 

© Anne Westlund

 

 

 

 

 

• Ekphrasis / Picture Poem

 

 

 

An Ekphrasis or Picture Poem is a poem inspired by a work of art.  I was inspired by Visual 5, a collage by Lin Neiswender.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit to the Beauty Shop

 

 

 

 

 

Like a chorus of blondes

 

they tell me my hair is fried

 

from at-home color

 

 

 

These hairdressers

 

all perfectly coiffed

 

like angels of desire

 

swoop in and mutter over

 

my split ends

 

 

 

In need of proper maintenance,

 

conditioning and decent upstanding

 

expensive $$ permanent color

 

 

 

I don’t know whether to laugh

 

or cry

 

 

 

I’ll stick to my box color

 

I’ll stick to my free hair cuts

 

thank you very much!

 

 

 

The choir shrieks off-key

 

paling against the vagaries

 

of economy

 

 

 

So much for a “free” consultation

 

 

 

I don’t leave a tip.

 

 

 

 

 

© Anne Westlund

 

 

 

 

 

Please check out the Muse Online Writers Conference and sign up for next year’s conference here: http://themuseonlinewritersconference.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.”~Robert Bresson, French Film Director