I signed up for The Stafford Challenge this month to get to writing poetry again after a pretty long slump (you can read about what The Stafford Challenge is here). So far it’s been like grinding rusty gears together trying to get the poetry flowing again, and after wrestling with God with all my feelings of lameness and talentless-ness, I finally got a poem down.
Is it a good poem? Not really. But it was fun to write poetry again.
One part of the Stafford Challenge is to write down an aphorism before you start. I decided to Christian-ize this challenge by starting with a Bible verse that pops out to me during my daily Bible reading, or a thought that God has placed on my heart that morning. If you like writing poetry, and would like to try the Christian-ized version of the challenge, it goes like this:
- Get a blank paper.
- Write down the date.
- Write down your Bible verse/Holy Spirit-inspired thought.
- Write a small diary entry, just jotting down some thoughts.
- Write your poem.
- Do this every morning, for one year.
Honestly, this only takes about 15 minutes. And then you have a poem to work with. And even if you don’t like your poem, tomorrow you’ll have another poem to work with.
I’m recording these rough-draft poems here because I’ve always wanted this blog to be a space where I experiment with poetry—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and maybe the Holy Spirit will send these to someone and use them for the kingdom in some wonderful, unexpected way.
So, let’s do it. One year of poems, Day 1.
Miss Fishie
Struggling on a line right now, wriggling like a fish. Set myself free—painfully, but only for a moment—or stay hooked and get pulled further and further away from God? Yeah, that’s not really an option, is it? Black nets, hands churning and groping, then waiting. You gave everything: gills to breathe even when things got deep, scales shining against a summer sunbeam—beauty in a blue wilderness. Something shiny pretty made by man will tear open flesh—first your greedy mouth, then your heart—lay you on a slab of unholy sacrifice to carnal appetites—serve you up pierced, scaled (and found wanting), and fried up with some french-fried potatoes and a stale beer at Pete’s Seafood Shanty. (The grip of you much more gentle, like being gripped by Love itself. Can’t slip through those fingers, no matter how slimy I am.) So grip, Father, rip. Until these wide eyes see.
Veronica McDonald 