Category: poem

A Wish, a Grammy Barnard Poem

Carrie Does Poems
Carrie Does Poems
A Wish, a Grammy Barnard Poem
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Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

So, this week I’ve decided to read one of my grandmother’s poems instead.
Full disclosure: I have a lot of grandmothers and they are all dead and this one was about 4’10 at maximum height and this grandmother was already 75 when I was born.

Luckily, she lived a long time so I got to know her. But her poems? They were hidden away and only brought out when my little hobbit dad begged her to see them. It was rare. She, like me, was pretty fearful about sharing her poems and her art.

But art and communication and thought isn’t meant to be hidden away, is it? So here’s to Grammy and here’s to being brave. 

Grammy Barnard Poem #2 
March 11, 1927

A Wish

Love, she goes hand in hand with spring,
	To thoughts of this girl then you will cling,
Go dear, and to her tell,
	Of the desire you have in her heart to dwell,
Tell her while sweet spring is here,
	Tell her while she still is near,
Tell her of moonlight, tell her of flowers,
	Tell her of love, and its wondrous powers.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Eric Van der Westen and the track is called “A Feather” and off the album The Crown Lobster Trilogy.

“You Aren’t Allowed To Write About Me”

Carrie Does Poems
Carrie Does Poems
"You Aren't Allowed To Write About Me"
/

Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

best poetry podcast by poet
Carrie Does Poems
“You Aren’t Allowed To Write About Me”



If by aren’t allowed, you mean you forbid it, then who are you to forbid?

If by write, you mean think, tell stories, try to understand, to recreate 
you in a way that isn’t such a jackass, 
I’m sorry, but you can only be improved,
and you’re missing out. 

The you on the page is so much better than the you in life. 

If by me you mean just you, I’m sorry, 
but stories (even characters, even real-life 
characters) are bigger than just one me, 
just one you, just one. 

None of us are just one.  

Why don’t you try to imagine what it’s like 
to not have a Lexus and enough money 
to have your back shaved? Why don’t you try 
to imagine what it’s like to listen to you asking someone 
if they are ‘really an American,’ or telling them they look 
like a pumpkin because they’re wearing an orange dress. 
What it’s like to hold a given-to-you bouquet 
and know that it will wilt because you don’t have 
the water to let it survive, to go 
in the shower and pray for warmth? 
Why don’t you imagine what it’s like 
to live bigger than who you are, 
trying to push into who you are meant to be? 
Imagine that’s more than a Lexus. 

Why don’t you imagine? 

I am not allowed to write about you. 

I write about you constantly 
even when you don’t realize. 
You are the grit between my teeth.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Eric Van der Westen and the track is called “A Feather” and off the album The Crown Lobster Trilogy.

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