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  • Sarah Van Arsdale

April 6, 2022

Updated: Apr 7, 2022

Acrostic: first words of the lines spell out another poem:


Enough plots and characters who refuse to spring to life.

Fiction means to wall my hope off.

I’m back to poetry.



Enough of this writing fiction shit. I’m done fabricating complications,

plots twisting like a noose around my neck,

and binding up my mind and hands.

Characters who won’t speak or when they do,

who won’t say what I want them to. What if I

refuse to write another word of fiction? (Refuse/refuse?)

To whom would that matter?

Spring’s happening outside, robins darting

to their nests, forsythia spinning forth in lemony froth---

life!

Fiction writing just

means more rejection letters

to add to my growing sheaf. I could

wall resentment into my despair,

my heart breaking every time my agent calls. Or doesn’t.

Hope stands heavily beyond a fence, like a horse that’s being broken.

Off in its own grey pasture. Enough.

I’m loosening my lines, my lies.

Back to poems, the lovely purposeless, hopeless joy of coming back

to poetry.





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1 Comment


Joan Greenbaum
Joan Greenbaum
Apr 07, 2022

wakes up my mind with vivid feelings and reminders to meaning, all around us. Thank you for April's first week, Sarah.

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