It’s
truly a beautiful feeling to experience one’s mind expanding: so in touch, so
aware…
Until
we have stripped ourselves down—very much like stripping furniture that has
been painted—one will never know what the wood grain beneath the paint is like.
And so it is with our creative natures: we don’t know exactly what we’ll find
there, underneath all of our fears and doubts, until we start scrapping away at
them. There is tremendous excitement in beginning at least to look.
Beginnings
are strange in that there is great joy in finally haven taken up the
paintbrush, or the pen, and begun. I can say this about my own writing: no
matter what it will seem like when I reread it, there is a pleasure in having
at least begun. For I can look
back over years when I was not as productive, and find myself regretting them. Why
deny creative expression?
There
are many great payoffs for those who deny their creativity. One of them is the
release of the self from the responsibility of this very arduous work. As soon
as one is convinced of one’s limitations, one never need explore beyond them. They
can also assume a pose of great humility, and become an audience to the arts
instead of a participant: a kind of complacency.
Beyond
complacency is our capacity to dare to be different. To commit to one’s
creativity means to discover our own individual capacity for taking risks. When
we are willing to do this, and start stripping away at our conditioning that
tells us that we are not creative, we suddenly recover the connection with our
inner selves: there, deep inside, under all the layers of “paint” we stripped
away, we discover our own creative self,
and hopefully, set her free.
Discovering
by
Nannette Hoffman
I
am a poem
discovering
what it feels like
to
be made of words.
I
am born from feelings,
transferred
to paper
with
a pen, pencil, typewriter,
or
a very strange contraption
called
a word processor.
Too
often I am scrawled
on
an old envelope, or worse—
a
torn scrap with writing
on
the other side: a bit unpleasant
when
my words don’t fit.
But
the saddest of all
is
to remain in someone’s head,
never
to be in the world:
for
if I cannot escape, I will surely die.
Being
born is so exciting!
my
life is a long one—maybe
for
centuries! Describing emotions,
painting
word pictures of just about
anything!
My favorite toys are
rhythm,
rhyme, metaphor
and
simile. I select carefully
each
word I use, loving each one.
So
look for me inside yourself.
I
hide there hoping you can find me.
The
secret passwords are:
Believe
there is a poem inside, and let me out!
Nannette Hoffman: Nannette was a fine
artist, teacher and poet, who passed away on December 9, 2010 at the age of 81. She was a native
of New York City and had lived in the D.C area for 40 years before moving to
Virginia in 2002. Nannette received her B.A from Hofstra University, her M.A in
English from Georgetown University, and was a Master Copyist of Fine Art at the
National Gallery of Art in D.C. She loved children and had one son, two
daughters and four grandchildren. It was Nannette’s passion to inspire others
to nourish their creative spirits, and she spent much of her life doing just
that.
~If you are interested in seeing your poetry appear in this blog, or submitting a poem by a woman that has inspired you, please click here for submission guidelines. I greatly look forward to hearing from you!~
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