Justice Poetic July
Justice Poetic July
July started off with something I didn't know I needed. A writing prompt. A writing theme. A poetry party. Fellow Poet Tapan decided we all should welcome the second half of 2020 with something beautiful. Something to say, okay okay, we’ve seen what you can do, please now, let’s calm down - here, here’s some flowers. So us poets wrote poems about flowers for 7 days. Well, this poet missed day 6, bummer. But I will probably make up for it. Because having this theme and collective effort of creation made my days. I mean it.
We are all looking for something to make our days right now. Pandemic stuff. Waiting for unemployment benefits to finally show up stuff. Concerns about the future stuff. So, focusing on flowers was a monumental major epic occasion for me. Each day I had a thing to think about that took my direct attention off of all of this other stuff. And I think I did okay. If I had to grade myself on poetry and the flower theme, I think I did pretty well.
Here’s my garland. Let me know what you think. And thank you very much for being here.
Balcony Flowers, a poem about how I really wish I could grow more flowers, have more space, do better about it all.
Wildflower Carpet, a fantasy poem about being with those I love in a place that is lovely.
Here for the Flowers, a poem about how we are all flowers, about how flowers are here for us .
I am putting my mind to flowers, a poem about what it has meant to me to be able to focus on flowers, to think about flowers -
Magical Science, a poem that was originally called Flowers and Birds, about how I am in love with both flowers and birds, and about how nature is magical .
A poem that combines flowers, my day spent on ancestry.com, white privilege, racism, and more.
And now, as if I could have enough sway and be as influential and amazing as Tapan, I want to try it. I want to keep the party going. I want to say let’s do a writing prompt. Let’s have another poetry party. Let’s keep asking 2020 to be cool, calm down, chill out. Let’s keep waking up every day with a focus on something that is of gentleness, kindness, creation, and healing. So, my best attempt - here goes:
Tapan brought us, and 2020 flowers. He told us to look at the roots, the blooms, to get grounded in beauty. Bless him. Now I want to take 2020, and us, to the stars. We are grounded, we are rooted, we have beauty, we gave and we are gifts.
Now let’s look up - let’s dream, let’s aspire, let’s become overwhelmed with the biggest of big pictures. We are on a planet. It is in space. Space is vast. There are stars. They are beautiful. Let us continue reflecting and welcoming the second half of 2020 by sharing our hopes with the stars, the constellations, the elements of air and space, of whatever else is up there for us to gaze on, wish on, pin our hopes to. Let’s take the rest of July, surrounded by flowers, to stargaze.
Submit your poems to any Medium publication. Tag them with all the things you wish to, but let’s create the tag Star Week, following Tapan’s Floral Week and give 7 days of stargazing poems to the universe, to 2020, to each other. Also tag me in your poems too, because I want to be sure to see them!
Sincerely,
Jenny