Poetry Friday -- Show Your Work!

As recently as the middle of last month, I was in a stew over how often or even whether I should share my original poems on the blog. Louise Borden tweeted me about a poetry contest sponsored by Garrison Keillor and when I thought about the poem I most wanted to submit, it was one I'd posted on the blog. I asked around a bit to confirm what I already knew: a poem that is posted on the blog has been published. Period. Can't even take the post down to reverse the action.

Maybe, I thought, I should only post bits from Big Name Poets or poems from the Public Domain. Maybe a poem a day for Poetry Month isn't such a good idea. Maybe I should keep my poems unpublished on the blog just in case...in the event that...

And then I read Austin Kleon's new book, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

and received such sage advice as, "You can't find your voice if you don't use it." and "Don't be a hoarder." (Ouch. It sounded like he was talking right to me!) Kleon talks about the importance of people knowing your work so that you can build some kind of audience or following or network. So that you can, at the very least, gather (or via the Internet, "gather") together with your fellow "knuckleballers" -- the others who do whatever kind of thing it is that you do.

I realized that I owe everything I am as a writer, a poet, and a member of this glorious group of knuckleball poetry fans called Poetry Friday to going public with my work. What exactly is it that I'm waiting for when I hoard my work? Nothing comes from nothing, and amazing and never-before-imagined opportunities have come from showing my work.

So I'm back on board with a poem a day for Poetry Month. I haven't decided exactly what that's going to look like or where it will be found, but I've got a couple of weeks to nail down the details, right?

And here's one of the (previously hoarded) poems I wrote for Laura's Pantone® Color Month:

Hope is the Color Green

Hope is the color green.
It comes to us washed by wet weather, or by tears.
It comforts the valley first,
then climbs the mountain with steady assurance,
accompanied by bursts
of wildflower happiness in its midst,
while above the haze and mist
a benevolent aqua sky persists.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Pantone® colors: wet weather, aqua haze


This week, Margaret has the Poetry Friday roundup at Reflections on the Teche.