Remnants of Being: A 2025 National Poetry Writing Month Zine

Sitting here, knees pulled to chest, chessboard on knees, makeshift writing board lap desk, book light, 2231, cellie wheeze-sleeping in the bunk beneath, cursing myself for failing to carve out any time to write today’s poem. Expectation fulfilled. My entire schedule, but especially my morning writing routine, completely upended by this new person with whom I am forced to share 90 sq. ft. of cluttered space. His 35 years of deep-cut wheel tracks do not run parallel to my 15-year ruts, and where they cross, we conflict. What was my writing space is now his television space. What was my pre-count, dark morning poetry time is now his desk lamp-lit Bible study time. An hour and a half to compose something of a first poem for the first day.

Today is one of those piecemeal days, when I sort of feel it but mostly don’t. I’ve started two other prompts and simply cannot move past the first line on one and the second stanza on another. Days like this make me feel inadequate. I just look at the scant phrases scattered across the page and hate myself for not being able to be creative in the way I long to be. Then I remember: the poem isn’t the end result. It is the vessel, and it doesn’t matter what it looks like, really. It’ll be the masterpiece I want it to be only when I’ve gotten out what needs to come out. So, there’s never a need to worry about how it looks. It’ll come.

Prayer for “Forbidden Love” 

Heavenly father, GOD of love, thank you for giving me the ability to love with your impossible love. I pray that your love spreads like wildfire to unite enemies from foes to friends 

Amen

I’ve not been too inspired to write this month, so I started reading my “scraps” to create sparks for new things…maybe. Sometimes just getting things back into my subconscious helps. I let it mull over the words and connect with them again. Sometimes it’ll spark something days later. I can be watching TV, and a line or two will get triggered by a show I’m watching, and I’ll have to stop and grab my journal.

Could be down at the tables, brawny collegiate, a little primer poetry to set the tone. Jack Gilbert today; and sad, sad music moving me head to heart— I’d uploaded a reflecting pool of instrumentals, knowing lyrics to interfere, before our MP3 service discontinued. Or— or, could be scrunched up in the old bunk under flexible reading light, hand towel drawn over head like baffles, portable dictionary slid down to me in my crater, and absolutely tattered composition book bandying knee to knee. Third day, fourth poem in, and having to diversify already. Same voice peeking through. Like songs all in the same key. Helps me appreciate everyone else’s work— refreshing.

I mostly stopped writing new poems to start on revisions—same process as last year—not looking forward to what I’d done, feeling like most of it was crap: I’d already read over the drafts while trying desperately to force something out in the small gaps of time I had alone in the cell and wasn’t impressed. So I was surprised when I figured 8 or 9 might have a chance and typed them up and started my usual revision process of reading through each draft & marking changes at least once a day (though having lost the opportunity for first-of-the-morning fresh eyes & ears), typing up the changes, reprinting to repeat the process. A couple look nearly done (for now), a couple more are falling into shape, from a few I’ve excised the healthy tissue to try to culture a different poem from the rotting mass of initial drafts. Kind of like dumpster diving for the edible parts of poems, to mix metaphors.