“Woman Painting Cherry Blossoms” by Adam Brill (https://www.flickr.com/photos/adametrnal/)
On day 23 of the NaPoWriMo challenge, “T” is for “Transcendentalism.” This was a poetic movement of the mid-19th Century, outlined by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1836 manifesto “Nature.” According to the Poetry Foundation’s page on the movement, Emerson explained “that the natural and material world exists to reveal universal meaning to the individual soul via one’s subjective experiences. He promoted the poet’s role as seer, a ‘transparent eyeball’ that received insight intuitively through his or her perception of nature.”
So today, draw inspiration from nature. Start with immediate, concrete imagery, using as many of the five senses as possible, but expand the poem into deeper insights about yourself, or human experience, or even the universe.
Feel free to share your poem (or a link to your poem) in the comments.
The NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) challenge is to write 30 poems in 30 days during the month of April. Find out more at the official site, NaPoWriMo.net.
About Alyce Wilson
