In the spring semester of college this year, I took a class called 'Creative Writing Across Genres' with Professor Hermsen. He's a very unique and enthusiastic teacher who can make any student feel really engaged in his English classes, even if they're not an English major. Terry Hermsen is really, really into poetry - something you find out when you take one of his classes.
The first night of this class (it was an evening class and only once a week), he had us do an exercise in which we all wrote down words on a couple slips of paper, and then we had to write their opposites on the other side of the paper. One might put love/hate or hot/cold on a paper slip.
Once we had all written on five slips of paper, we circled around on the second floor of one of the buildings on campus. We let all the papers float and fall down to the first floor, and were then instructed to go pick some papers and make a poem out of the words we chose.
Distress is the kind of word you find in
a drawer or a closet, folded and neatly
tucked away so as not to be seen by someone,
anyone.
The coat hangers have glass, snow, and smoke
hanging in a row - the delicates must be
looked after.
Silence and sky are posters hung up above a
bed, whose sheets look like a mess created
by a paintbrush.
Look into your tea to find betrayal and
the sea - the cup sits on a dresser between
a bottle and a breeze that trees whisper
about outside, where reality is.
See how the doctor takes sier time in
etching loss and debauchery onto the walls
with a flashlight, under a chandelier
full of comfort and noise and the ocean
where the lit candles should be.
The moon is an anchor and shines
on the dirt, where anxiety is, but you
have to take that and transcribe it onto
paper in your room.
Find forgiveness.
Then shatter.
Shatter like the broken clock lying on
the mahogany wood of the room.
Your body is just another canvas for anger.
