Please note: for optimal viewing, this poem may best be read on a laptop, desktop, or tablet screen. Feel free to read here why I sometimes prioritize a poem’s form over its mobile screen compatibility.
I’m thrilled to share that Anabaptist World has recently published a version of my poem, “My Poem Then, My Poem Now:”
For this poem, I created a prompt for myself to write verse in response to a poem I had written when I was younger. Writing in a way that honors both my younger and current self proved to be challenging at first; as I mention in the first lines of “How to Say….” [Now], “I keep wanting to speak to you as ‘You,’ as if the person / who wrote that poem then isn’t me.” When I wrote the first poem “How to Say” as a teenager, and chose “How to Say…” as a title, I didn’t consider then that this question “How to Say…” may expand and grow along with me as I age. Today, the question, “How to Say” for me means, “How to say something truthful and kind and respectful to my younger self?” Only time will tell what the question “How to Say…” may mean one day in the future.
I love the serendipity that this poem published with Anabaptist World around the same time as the The Children Will Prophesy issue of Geez Magazine (where I serve as Poetry Editor). My friend Kateri Boucher’s letter to her younger self, “It’s Not All Bad News From the Future,” particularly caught my eye, with its snippets of her own journal entries from 6th grade. I love how she also honors both versions of herself in her writing.
Here’s a poetry prompt or you today: do you have any of your writings from when you were younger? If so, what would you like to say in response to your younger self’s words? If not, what memories do you have of your younger self, and how would you like to respond to them today? What questions do you bring to that younger self, and how can you honor the past, present, and future versions of yourself?
I’d love to hear what you think!
Photo credit: Suedehead on VisualHunt