"The reader brings the poem to life, shading in the lines with your own imagination..." Courtney Sina Meredith reflects on Poetry Object 2018
This poem is about my favourite person - my grandmother Rita, who passed away when I was six years old. We had great adventures together, she was very creative, a wonderful cook, and the kind of person who lit up every room she walked into. Some of my best memories of her are captured in this small poem, the idea of writing about a precious or strange object was a really interesting provocation and I enjoyed the creative process of simply letting my mind wander until it found that special thing to write about.
When you write poems: you time travel, create new worlds, share new knowledge about yourself and the world around you - connections are created between the poet, the poem and the reader. The reader brings the poem to life, shading in the lines with your own imagination, and the poet has the great privilege of being part of the reader’s day. I am still getting used to people reading my words in different parts of the world, even when I wrote this poem - I imagined it being read by smart, funny, inquisitive, interesting young people. Writing about solid things that you can reach out and touch can be a lot of fun, the great joy of writing is how surprising it is - you may have an idea or plan for how you want it to go, but oftentimes that changes as you write.
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Read Rosary here
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One of my favourite things about poetry is that all you need is paper and pen, I have so many journals that I have lost count! When you discover the quiet place in you that loves to write about your thoughts and feelings, you might see something and write about it in a way that no one ever has before. Every time you come back to the page, you open your heart to magic… The magic to communicate across classrooms, cities, countries - and may even centuries. I loved writing this special poem about my grandmother’s rosary because it meant I got to write about someone really special and important to me.