Why the words in my head?

I've always loved creativity of all kinds.
But I never had an urge to write poetry.

And then suddenly, night after night,
I would wake up with words in my head.

I think I remember 19 poems the first month.

When I complaind to a friend, she just about
fell off her chair laughing.
What was I doing, complaining about
the opposite of writer's block?!?

From my point of view, I was being taken
somewhere totally unexpected.

I respected what was happening -
so I followed the words in my head,
wrote them down, let more words come,
typed them up.

But I certainly didn't choose to write poetry.
In fact, I didn't think of what I was writing
as poetry, but as spoken word pieces -
words meant to be spoken and to go with music.

Where was all this coming from?
Some of it was grief - an emotion I'd
generally stayed far away from.
Somehow the grief opened something in me.

There's more. I'd been breaking
so many inner taboos -
reaching out when I usually stayed safe -
daring instead of waiting and longing and hoping.

Love ... that was part of it.
And old grief, I am sure.

It took every iota of strength I had to dare,
to reach out.

It felt - it was - a change in lifelines.




It alsa felt so easy and natural -
even though so unexpected.






Now it's almost 20 years later -
and the flow of poems has ebbed at times,
but never stopped.




Over the past year and a half,
I've once again been changing lifelines -
or so it feels, anyway.

I will always be my father's daughter.

I have so many gifts from him -
creativity, passion, caring, empathy,
concern for social justice,
boundless desire to learn.

I've been doing my best to break
the hold of ancient fears and lack of knowing,
barriers that probably go back for generations.

Part of breaking lifelines, changing lifelines,
has been getting my works further out
into the world than my father
would ever have imagined -
though he dreamed of having
his work known, I'm sure.

About five years ago,
I started building a home on the web
for my writings - including ElsasWords.
In January 2011, there were 48,328
page views for the month.

I've given a gift to my father -
several years after his death.

A couple of years ago, I put a few
of his poems and stories on the web.
They get about 1000 page views a month.

So in a small way, I'm breaking
some of the barriers that kept
his work away from the world.

And now, going on with my own journey,
I've collected 22 of my favorite love poems
into an e-book, Love Poems for You.

There are so many more
plans and hopes and dreams.

From heart breaking open wide
to life breaking open wide.



To get your copy of the e-book,
Love Poems for You,
CLICK BELOW
on the cover of your choice
two hearts intertwined,
or soft and mellow on the beach.


cover                              cover
    
opening page                  opening page
   

  

Writer blog. Woman poet? Love song artist?
The words are clumsy. I listen to the words in my head.
Writer blogs. Interviews with writers, femaie poets.

also ...