Poetry Challenge: Poem #3 of 5

Hi there! Welcome to the third poem in the Poetry Challenge!

This poem is what I am calling an "I Am" poem. And for lack of a better title, I am temproarily calling it "The Path Called Blessing." I initially wrote the poem in response to the "Digging for Names" exercise on page 247 in Wingbeats II: Exercises and Practice in Poetry by Scott Wiggerman and David Meischen.

Technically, the prompt asks the poet to research their given name or that of someone they know and use what they discover as material for a poem. Being the poet I am and one who is learning the importance of rebelling against from  - in the most natural and positive way to make a poem my own (in this case the prompt), I took the poem in a different direction.

Long ago when I first started taking creative writing courses, I wrote a minuscule poem (I was afraid to write anything else!) about family names. Remembering that poem, I decided to give it an overhaul, tweaking it for the purposes of the Wingbeats prompt. The following is my most recent revision. I hope you enjoy.

The Path Called Blessing

I am my Grandmothers'
namesake: Florinda, Feliciana
My mother's beautiful flower,
My father's joy I'd never know

I thrive in service to others,
My mother's daughter,
Kin to those buried
In still uknown-to-me
graves nearby, siblings
I know only as newly
born twins:
Marco Alejandro
Marisela Imelda

I am the oldest grandchild,
Cousin to Ana, Javier,
Mika and Nico
Primos-hermanos close
as brothers and sisters

I walk forked roads, paths
I make to find my own way
out of Adversity, widening
the one pointed toward
Blessing, ignoring the paths
heavy footprint-laden,
muddled by those before

A new start ...

The title of this, my first post, could very easily be about more than just my first post to this blog. Today it also means having to take a new look at a poem I've been fussing with. And I say "fussing" because the perfectionist me has trouble letting go and allowing myself to write freely and rebel against a particular form (insert any form here).

The form in question is that of Sonnet. I have never even attempted to write one, much less think I could possibly chose one to imitate. But I generally decide to do the things that are most complicated (or I make complicated), so I decided I could take Sherman Alexie's poem, "The Facebook Sonnet" and attempt to imitate it in my own voice with a different focus.

Usually when I write I don't have a particular form in mind, just the job ahead of putting words to paper, allowing the poem to "choose" its own form, so to speak. But when given a prompt, in form to imitate ... that's when that perfectionist nature takes over and I find myself counting iambs instead of honing a true image. Gratefully, my poet family has no trouble reminding me what is most important.