We’ve been writing prose pieces about the process of writing a poem in my Writing Poetry class. The professor has been giving some good advice about going deeper into the writing process to fully develop the poem.
Wildflowers was the first poem I wrote during Poetry 1. I had never really written poetry before, and didn’t know where to begin. So I just started writing. I started writing about memories, about my feelings, and about my mother. Most of the words I wrote I didn’t use, but after writing all these things the following poem came out.
Wild Flowers
Katy Gehrke
I remember the wild flowers in mid-summer,
the faint sweet scent of silky blooms,
red, yellow, and blue, into a colorful bouqet,
picking only the best and brightest,
each one with precision and care.
I remember the run back,
eager to see your proud face,
a smile for our hard work and effort,
the only prize we could have hoped for,
victory smelled so sweet.
The summer’s always brought flowers,
Yet they lost all enchantment.
What ever happened to happiness with simplicity.
I remember staring at the wilting petals,
hating them all the more.
You left us that day,
no more smiles no more tears,
the flowers disappeared,
no longer crowding our kitchen table,
dying slowly with each day.
I wonder if their are flowers where you are.
do they take you back in time,
remembering your children,
so eager to impress and please,
wishing to forever keep the enchantment.
It has been years, and yet I still smell the flowers.
The image of the wild flowers I used to pick when I was a girl led me to to remember the feeling that followed. I tried to give colors to the flowers to make the image more real. I used the words precision and care to let the reader know that the little girl was very eager to please her mother. Each stanza represents a different event following the picking of the flowers. First the happiness that entailed pleasing my mother. The second represents the withering away of the happiness. The third is the disapearance of the flower and how that left me feeling. I cut the final stanza out of my revised poem, because I thought that it was not needed and was a topic that is diffucult to explain. I left the last line though, adding a touch of finalty, and reminiscence.
