Weekend Work, Writing 201:Poetry

The weekend assignment was to post a poem from one of our favorite poets.

I have a few people that I thought of. For fun, happy kid poetry, I like Jack Prelutsky. As a modern poet, he writes things that are new and interesting from a ‘kids’ point of view. He writes poems in a light-hearted way. Here is one poem called, ‘Deep in Our Refrigerator‘: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jack-prelutsky

Deep in Our Refrigerator

there’s a special place

for food that’s been around awhile…
we keep it, just in case.
‘It’s probably too old to eat,’
my mother likes to say.
‘But I don’t think it’s old enough
for me to throw away.’

It stays there for a month or more
to ripen in the cold,
and soon we notice fuzzy clumps
of multicolored mold.
The clumps are larger every day,
we notice this as well,
but mostly what we notice
is a certain special smell.

When finally it all becomes
a nasty mass of slime,
my mother takes it out, and says,
‘Apparently, it’s time.’
She dumps it in the garbage can,
though not without regret,
then fills the space with other food
that’s not so ancient yet

In contrast to Jack Prelutsky, my most favorite poet would probably be Fanny Crosby. She was a woman who was blind. She used her ‘disability’ and changed it into ‘ability’. She wrote over 8,000 poems. Many she put to music.

She wrote very inspiring poems whose purpose was to encourage, convict, and restore the human soul. Some of her intent was to help others find comfort in knowing Christ. If you would like to read her earlier writings, you can find them in The Blind Girl, and Other Poems. (Many of these are about losing a loved one.

Fanny wrote the words to many familiar songs during her long-lived-life. Some are: Blessed Assurance, Tell me the Story of Jesus, Jesus is Calling, and many more. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/b/l/e/blesseda.htm

BLESSED ASSURANCE:

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

The story of ‘Blessed Assurance’ and how Fanny came up with the lyrics is found here: http://biblestudyplanet.com/the-story-of-blessed-assurance/

The mixture of her life story, as well as the words she put on paper for others to find solace in, make her my poetic hero.

Even though Fanny’s life span was from 1820 to 1915, her words live on in the voices of many souls. Thanks Fanny Crosby!