LITR 3731: Creative Writing 2006
Student Poetry Submission

Mary Bel Garza

October 8, 2006  

Confirmation

The room is cold.

Nude with other women

I wait and wait

wrapped in only a thin sheet.

Is it a sin to complain?

My name is called—

finally.

Why all the excitement?

It’s simply confirmation.

I always wanted you.

Finally blessed with you,

I wasn’t ready.

Is it a sin to question a blessing?

The family is ecstatic.

It’s hard to share

the excitement.

We wait for confirmation.

Am I ready?

I will never

cry on cue

over confirmation.

Ten years—

a solid marriage.

Are we ready?

Emotionally ready?

Financially ready?

Nine and a half weeks

I see a head

spine

hands

toes!

Confirmation.

Am I ready?

Yes.

This blessing, I confirm.

I cry on cue.

I have to say that I was extremely worried about writing a poem. I have never written a poem like this before. I have written short poems in high school English class, but nothing that I have put so much thought into. The readings from the text book helped me prepare to write the poem. Now that I have written both a fiction story and a poem I know that I would definitely prefer to write a poem.

My poem originated from personal experience. I am expecting my first baby so naturally just as I am excited I am also worried, nervous, and scared. The idea for the poem actually came to me at the beginning of my third trimester when the last thing I wanted to talk about was my pregnancy. I started to feel guilty because I began to feel irritated every time I would be asked, “How are you feeling?” “How’s the baby?” “When are you due?” “Is it a boy or a girl?”. I had just had enough and felt like there are other things to talk about. So I put those feelings together along with the awkwardness of an ultrasound and personal women exams into words.

I was hesitant to use this as my poem because I did not want people to feel like I am a cold women that is not happy about having a baby or didn’t want it to seem like I did not want this baby. Since I am not much of a writer and just did not feel like I could come up with anything much more creative this poem regardless of what anyone things would have to do. My poem had to be about personal feeling or it was just going to sound too made up and fake. So I explained my feeling behind it to the two people I submitted it to for review. I submitted the following poem as my draft exchange to Karen and JT.

 I always wanted you and

When I was finally blessed with you

I felt I wasn’t ready

Isn’t typical to not want what you have?

Is it a sin to question a blessing?

Especially of this depth.

How emotionally ready, am I ready?

How financially ready, am I ready?

Am I ready?

The family is ecstatic

Finally after ten years of marriage!

Having a little baby from

Such a solid, loving marriage

Are we ready?

It’s hard to share the excitement

However the blessing is accepted.

We wait for confirmation

I will never be the corny person that

Cries on cue over confirmation.

The room is cold, why take off your clothes?

You wait and wait nude with other women

Is it a sin to complain?

You are wrapped in only a thin sheet.

Your name is called

You murmur, “finally”

Again why all the excitement

Again it’s simply confirmation.

Is it a sin to question a blessing?

How emotionally ready?

How financially ready?

Is it a sin to complain?

Wow! I see a head, spine, hands, and toes!

Nine and a half weeks of confirmation

Yes! You are expecting,

Oh what a blessing, I confirm.

Yes.

I became a corny person that cries on cue and questioned

Am I ready?

 I pray for my own confirmation.

Yes you are ready

The blessing is completed and given

I will love and parent

This huge blessing, I confirm.

As you can see the poem was a mess. I wrote down what I was feeling. I had not put much thought into stanzas and punctuation. I know my poem was too long. I explained to Karen and JT that I knew nothing about poetry and could use any piece of advice they are willing to give me. They were such big help and responded the following.

Karen wrote in an email:

I think u can make this draft more poetic by breaking the lines differently - lesson from ch1: poetry is about line, not sentences.

also, if u remember anaphora (from sound chapter, I think) it uses a formal repetition of words or phrases. since ur not using anaphora in the strictest since, try taking out some of the "blessing’s and "ready"s, but I like the way u used ready in the first 3 stanzas - I wasn't, am I, are we.

in fact, since u end the third chapter using "we" for the first time, I suggest u start the next stanza with that in mind.

imagery, the prof said, makes it poetry, such as in stanzas 5 and 8. think about doing that with the other stanzas. but also consider making word choices more descriptive - adds poetic sound to the imagery. for instance, in third stanza - ecstatic, baby, solid, marriage - try similes that represent a solid marriage (like welded steel) or a metaphor (twined vines) to represent two people joined. u might not like my suggestion but I chose it because it also adds to the poetic sound, the "ed" sound and the "w" sound.

JT wrote in an email:

I think what you really needed to do was distill its essence. Lob off the unneeded parts and get to the heart of the experience. Part of the process is playing with the structure. I think leading with the cold room is much stronger. It raises a question in the readers mind. What's going on? then the story unfolds. It also helps create a sense of time and place, and grounds the piece. These are all your words, although I changed "you" to "I" and "cries" to "cry."

So I took all their advice and with their help changed the line structure and shorten the poem. In my case you can see how shortening my poem made it read and look more like a poem then just a conversation I was having with myself. The original poem was expressive with my feelings but the end result made it seem more poetic. I enjoyed the draft exchange experience with my fellow classmates because they helped me learn more about poetry just by their advice. I plan to keep writing poetry and practice much like I did this one. I will continue to just write my feelings and thoughts then go back and make it into a poem.