Scraps of Poetry

A piece of paper can be a beautiful thing. A little scribbling later, and you never want to throw it away. Whether they are your own words or someone else, those smudges and bleeds have tapped into something.

Remember that impulse to keep notes passed to you in high school? It’s kind of like that, but less spoken. Less intimate in a way, because the potential for the future is even broader. Yet exceedingly personal.

For the first time in what feels like ages, I was writing poetry. And the two pages got thrown away! Lost in a stack of child-attacked family bulletins.

Concordia Publishing House is hosting a Reformation hymn competition with a February 29th deadline. Let’s get writing!

The other day I tried to write some common meter stuff (That’s the CM reference tucked into corners of hymnal pages), but things didn’t flow. Then today I was thinking about a Reformation hymn and imagined adding verses to it. That helped a lot. First I thought of the hymn’s imagery and content. Then I tried to match stress patterns.

Honestly, I think people overlook the stress patterns of language, when it is such a neat little device. The energy and patter of language helps draw more words out of the wells of our minds. 🙂 Beautiful!

Next I thought about phrases and expressions from the Bible that seem to get too little use. I thought about New Testament warnings and promises. I thought about incarnation, divine victory, and how the means of grace words often won’t rhyme or patter well! Then I calmed down.

Ladies and gentlemen, my scraps of paper are gone, but juices are flowing and there was a chance to ponder the well of salvation and the living water in Spirit and Word. Thanks be to God.

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Filed under As Theological Writers, Contests, Hymns, Poetry, Uncategorized

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