Today, I wanted to share a very short piece of creative writing as I haven’t since Christmas!! This is a poem entitled “pulse quickens”. I wrote it as an introductory piece for my creative writing class final which was a zine! I, of course, based my zine around nature.
About the piece
Both the title (designed to be read as a part of the poem) and the piece itself were inspired by e.e. cummings. At the time, I had been reading his work and felt to inject some of that flair. Of course, this is a very simple poem, and I can’t come close to his work, but I tried!
I am big on imagery & symbolism, so this poem is no exception to that. I will keep the main meaning to myself, but I attempted to mirror elements like the sea and wind to a particular emotional experience: falling in love. Falling for someone, something, or nature itself, can all be read in or through the poem–at least, I hope so!
What I feel I accomplished with this poem
I recently read an article in The Paris Review about Walt Whitman’s grand scale writing style. (Great piece, by the way, 10/10 recommend the read.) A quote that struck me had to do with the use of environment as a vehicle for the true meaning of a poem. I do feel like I managed to do that in this piece. Not in a fabulous way, mind you, but I think I did do it. (However, when it comes to prose, I do the “mistaken” version of this all the time. But, I don’t even care because the RULES ARE DIFFERENT!!!)
“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” takes place on a beach, but it is not “about” the sea, because great poems are not “about” in this way; they are profound reaches into that “furnace of meaning,” and they use whatever is at hand—the sea, a ferryboat ride, an unruly field of grass—to get to where they need to go. The “subject” matters until the furnace is lit, and then the poem almost seems to burn its ostensible occasion clean away.
Mark Doty, “Out of the Crade Endlessly Revising”
Anyways, I hope you like my short, simplistic poem, “pulse quickens”!
pulse quickens
i am lost in the green & blue
the rise and fall of the waves
tender caresses that kiss the trees
streams of consciousness attract me
fall
ing
in
to
love
Ahhh, I hope you liked this poem!!! Please let me know what you thought <3 Thank you for reading xxx