Abandoned Lines and Poetry Puttering

I woke up this morning thinking that I should write a poem.  I remembered having some ideas for a poem.  I didn't remember what they were.  I decided to look through my abandoned lines document (which I wrote about in this blog post) and see if anything inspired me.

Once I got set up, I decided to go through old rough drafts and cut and paste lines into the abandoned lines document.  I have wondered if I should do this process, this cutting and pasting, as I write, but so far I haven't.

I don't really go through old rough drafts that often.  I was surprised to find some polished poems hiding in that rough draft file.  I started a new file so that I don't have to dig through the rough draft file each time I want to polish a poem.  I fought off the why should I even bother blues--and I put that line in the abandoned lines document.

As I was cutting and pasting, I remembered the poem I had planned to write.  Back in early August, we had a professional development day, and one of our options was a stop the bleed workshop, where we learned how to tie a tourniquet and/or bandage a wound.  I thought back to my Girl Scout days where we learned how to tie a tourniquet using only our bandannas and sticks found in the yard--while being severely cautioned that this technique was a last ditch effort only because it would lead to a lost limb.  One of my colleagues remembers being taught to cauterize a wound with a lighter--not a technique recommended by the workshop leaders. Ah, the joys of growing up in the 70's!

I'm still puzzling over the possibilities of that poem.  But here's an unexpected joy.  As I was sorting, cutting, pasting, writing, I came up with a new poem, about living in seminary housing, seeing people cross the parking lot, hearing singing through the walls at night.  It's not finished, but I have enough that I'll remember what I was doing when I come back to it.

I'm getting a lot of writing done these days, but I have to be intentional to get poetry writing done.  I'd like to do more poetry writing.  It's good to remember that puttering can lead to poems.