“It is difficult
To get the news from poems
Yet {people} die miserably every day
For lack
Of what is found there”
William Carlos Williams
And so it is with our Gatehouse Global Poetry Movement, that here-together, all of us, in this moment, with our words, are illuminating what anyone at one point in their life seeks to experience: Connection, Safe Harbour, Power, Voice, Purpose, Expression of One’s Soul, …
Plato once declared: “There is a revolutionary power of poetic thinking.” And it is in the process of our poetry writing that we generate a revolutionary response to childhood sexual violence. Together with our poems, our voice, our sacred being, we are transforming round the globe, the way cultures will respond to childhood sexual violence. “Unless there is a new mind there cannot be a new line. The old will go on repeating itself with recurring deadliness.” William Carlos Williams
Pablo Neruda once shared: “To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep, and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses---that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things, carrying us to {the very heart of our soul}”
So this is what we are doing--sharing our stories through poetry, in ways that invite others to share and in so doing create the space for authentic healing and transformation. And, to remember the old saying the longest journey begins with first step or in this wonderful moment-the longest journey begins with your first word.
Below are six themes that may offer a “prompt” for you to write your poems.