FEATURED POET: Matthew
Brouwer is a performance poet and teaching artist residing in Bellingham, WA. His
work bridges the worlds of spoken word and literary poetry to create a style
that can be both evocative and subtle, enlivening and profound. He has
performed throughout the US and been featured in regional literary,
performance, and visual arts showcases such as Cirque, Phrasings, and Strands.
Matthew leads workshops and retreats for teens and adults, coordinates
the Whatcom Juvenile Justice Creative Writing Project, and has facilitated
Kintsugi: a writing circle for people suffering chronic medical conditions. In
April he released his first full collection of poems, Stories We Must Tell, which details his lengthy journey of descent
and recovery after a backpacking injury in 2009 slowly stripped him of the
ability to walk. More on Matthew at www.matthewbrouwerpoet.com
VIDEO: Matthew Brouwer
Back Home, Week Five
Three
times now
I
have seen the Trickster
The
latest in broad daylight
ears
propped
padding
down my lane
Now
I am sure it must be a sign
What
he wants
I
don’t know
or
maybe I do
Five
months
unable
to walk right
and
now this wheelchair
beside
my bed
Childhood
room where I lay
refugee
camp of all my things
Dad
snoring in the room above
Mom
tossing
Sleep
doesn’t seem to help
a
thousand prayers neither
Dreams
still come
but
these days
I
play catch and release
Doctors
think I’m nuts
parents,
too
And
what good am I to friends
except
a burden to their minds?
Everything
gets stripped
and
beneath a single question
Who
am I?
Without
my scribbling hands
without
my scrambling legs
Just
a mind
rising
in the night
full
of words
VIDEO: Matthew Brouwer
And
then the Moon
scratched
me on the arm with its white hand
and
I took hold the rope that hung
from
its luminescence
and
swung out over gardens
and
fields
and
lakes and hillsides
and
forests
and
the birds who were sleeping in them
Over
newlyweds and divorces
and
children in their animal pajamas
and
the grandpas who could no longer
rise
to lift them
And
the horses in their barns
and
the girls who every afternoon
forgot
their loneliness to ride them
Over
townships and cities
and
playgrounds and water fountains
and
empty parking lots and churches
and
places where the dead collect
beneath
the grass and stones
After
the dream I was still in bed
when
I was visited by foxes
and
they rubbed against my arms
with
their silken tails
until
I too smelled like a creature
of
the foliage
And
I knew from them my life was the one thing
I
could not have
unless
I did not try to hold it
But
there I sat
as
if before a hundred miles of mountains
aching
to be crossed
and
the compass I had been given
I’d
not yet learned to read
But
that in the crossing I would learn to read it
and
when I came to the river at the edge
that
becomes a mouth
WRITE YOUR POEM
What is the relationship of your poem to silence? Notice that Matthew's video's offer the viewer an entirely different experience.
It makes you wonder about the brogue of Dylan Thomas and if he read the poem for his father when he wrote the refrain, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
The spoken word has as much impact on the poem as the choice to use elements of prose over musical forms.
Why do you make the choices? There's no right or wrong answer. Write your poem. Ask yourself why you write with or without form. For a spoken word or a silent study. When you are done thinking write it first on paper and then lean over the river next to your house and write it with your finger on the surface of the water. Watch your poem flow with the Tao to another sea of words down river.
