Inspiration Buffet: This week’s buffet features a poem from Risa Denenberg which stirs to mind the concept of “a body of work.”
While we work diligently on individual poems, submit them to journals where they are scattered about, and occasionally gather some into a single published collection, it is easy to forget that we are creating a body of work.
Each poem is just one cell in a larger living body. A body we all hope will continue breathing and speaking long after our own bodies have returned to ashes and dust.
Spurned – by Risa Denenberg
— The novel was lost along with her poems.
One summer
she wrote
hundreds
of chapter titles,
tossing sheets of paper, one by one,
like white Frisbees
crumpled beneath buffalo hooves.
She’d hoped to leave more than this,
to one day stand behind a podium and recite:
Here are my poems you’ve rejected,
poem after poem,
now I’m dead, feast over my body
of work.
But no one found her folios —
the austere white mice
of her experiments.
About the Poet:
Risa Denenberg lives a quiet life on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State where she works as a nurse practitioner. She is an editor at Headmistress Press, an independent publisher of poetry by lesbians. Her recent publications include three chapbooks and a full length book, Mean Distance from the Sun (Aldrich Press, 2013).
Photo by Ryan McGuire.
Poetry Potluck – The comment section is OPEN for you to share your thoughts and poems on the topic of today’s Inspiration Buffet.
Really, we want to hear what you think. We want to read your poem. Every Sunday, everyone is welcome at the Poetry Breakfast table. Don’t just stand outside sipping your coffee and looking in through the window. Come inside and join the conversation.
Poetry Breakfast 
June 27, 2016 at 6:16 AM
Poem
it started with a word, which became a line,
turned into a stanza, and began to look
beyond itself, found fingers on keyboard, eyes
on monitor, it didn’t stop there, it continued,
printing ink on paper, then propped up
for a second exam, by a computer speaker,
set on a small desk accompanied with chair,
noticed file cabinets surrounding
on one wall of what otherwise was
a dining room, in an apartment
ensconced with bedrooms, bathrooms,
windows to gaze out of, doors to
walk through, experienced sunlight on its skin,
being taken to a car, placed inside
on the passenger seat, couldn’t see much,
but sensed the shifting of gears and light,
shadows of passing trees (brethren),
the occasional chirp of bird or hum of plane,
the sudden ceasing of motion and the return
of fingers, the entering of a cafe, its voice
finally heard, amidst the coffee machine,
the small talk, the street outside,
the other buildings, cities, states,
nations, continents, planets,
stars, galaxies, universes, gods,
and wished for immortality;
unfortunately, there was a need
for further drafts, workshops, outings
(previously published on Epiphany and Lunarosity)
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June 27, 2016 at 6:08 AM
Writer’s Blocks
I have
a few.
One “write”
on my desk.
A piece
of driftwood
no bigger than
a paperback.
I took it
from a Yreka beach–
a memory baton
collected in
a former marriage–
now, also
a poem!
Knowing it’s there,
I don’t worry,
I merely
look around.
Everything reminds me
I’m alive.
The hanging living room clock
ticks over the fireplace,
conjures daymares
of slow classroom hours.
Small Beauty And The Beast
pajamas sprawled
about the carpet
contain my past,
present, and future.
Even in the crumpled
Ralph’s plastic
shopping bag
slung on
a doorknob,
I’ve stored chapbooks
of poems.
(previously published on Flutter)
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June 27, 2016 at 6:02 AM
Other Souls
“You don’t have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.” ~John Ciardi, Simmons Review, Fall 1962
The girl lay head slumped
On the long wooden school table
Tired of words as sun
Shines through windows
And wedged with her
In between two tables
A little blue gum wrapper
Without a brain of its own
Now I’m not drawing
Any comparison between two objects
But sometimes I feel like a girl
Who wishes she was a gum wrapper
Maybe then I could be
Left alone with my thoughts
Unpolluted by someone else’s
Phrases filling my ears
Yet, there are times I really listen
I take mental notes with my eyes
Record them in a handy chamber
Deep inside my skull
Later on I release my ideas
One by one on pieces of paper
Called poems, which I learned to do
From watching other souls
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June 26, 2016 at 11:44 AM
MY POEMS
1.
My poems have their moods.
Sometimes they feel shy,
tired of the scrutiny of eyes,
tired of being undressed.
They come and snuggle
under me like baby chicks.
Rested, they venture forth again.
They become eyes
buttonholing people on corners:
‘Pssst—help you see? ‘
Each one has a mission:
some reveal the hilarity
in the composition of matter.
Some spread the word
that the sky is falling.
Others announce a shout
of joy everywhere at 10 AM.
What do I really know about my poems?
They come from somewhere
I can’t even see.
2.
My poems hang out on the corner.
They go for rides with strangers.
Like any parent I worry.
When they come home for the night,
some tell me where they’ve been.
Others don’t say a word.
There’s nothing I can do.
I gave what I could.
Now they’re on their own.
3.
Sometimes the poems roost
in a tree outside
my window at night, and make
so much noise I can’t sleep.
Maybe when Fall comes,
they’ll all fly south.
4.
Once I lost my pen
and words began
to well up inside,
until my head looked
hydro-cephalic.
.
You better believe
nowadays I always
know where one is!
(2008. 2015)
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