Lucky to Choose–a terzanelle

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.)

Almost the end of September–wha???

Well, once again, I missed the live write. This whole past week was all about getting settled back in after our glorious trip to Norway (photos and poems about that to come), and the weekend disappeared in a blink.

When I looked to see what our Poetry Sisters prompt was, I came to “It’s all my fault.” I had just been part of a seriously depressing Zoom chat with nonfiction friends over the future of nf books, given the proliferation of AI “books” and various tools that…well, anyway. I don’t want to get depressed again. So when I read that prompt, I actually liked it, but I also wanted to make it a positive poem. I didn’t want to wallow in sadness.

And THEN I realized I’d been looking at last month’s prompt. THIS month, we’re doing terzanelles. (I’ve never heard of them either.) Oops. So then I decided to just keep the “It’s all my fault” bit and try this form. This is not an easy form (to me). (And I totally overlooked the part in our plans that said we were choosing rhyming pairs to all use.) But I still had fun playing with it. I started with it’s all my fault and did a bit of freewriting. There are lots of things totally out of my control–my chronic pain, family members’ health problems, etc. But a lot of things that make me a tiny bit wistful ARE my fault. They’re the result of my choosing something else as more important. And I’m lucky to be able to make many choices! The bare planter on our deck and my currently messy studio (full of drafts, charging cords, knitting projects, sample tiles, etc.) are a little sad. But they’re just that way because I prioritized something else. I’m just going to embrace that.

Here’s my second draft. The photo is of Randy and me at the North Cape on our recent Norway trip. The North Cape is the northernmost land point in Europe that’s accessible by car–I think that’s the deal. You’re up on a high plateau looking out at the ocean, and the horizon is so blue and empty that you can see the curvature of the Earth. It’s an amazing place.

I’ll be by to see what you (maybe) and my Poetry Sisters did with this form.

Liz

Sara

Tanita

Tricia

Mary Lee

Click here to see all our previous Poetry Princesses collaborations.

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