My 8th grade students and I start off the week by musing on and writing about what inspires us to breathe, act, and create...

Monday, September 30, 2013

Getting Inspired by Songs and Poems

For today, I asked you to bring in a song or poem that inspires you. For the next 15 minutes, read/listen to and write about, with, or for it. Write freely and thoughtfully without censoring yourself.

Here is my chosen text. It is a poem that deals with motherhood, an important part of my life. And it is written by a poet who I love almost as an extension of my self.

Morning Song

 
by Sylvia Plath

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.  New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety.  We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses.  I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's.  The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars.  And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15293#sthash.LFqA3axV.dpuf

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