POETRY
Amy Aves Challenger
"Mom's writing another poem," my kids complain. Whether we're aware of it, it seems we all observe the world in poetry, in the root of our own inner language. I write poems daily, often outdoors, as a warmup before bigger writing projects. Poems help me to exhale, to commit to a handful of words, to weed out the world's clutter, and uncover imagery, ideas, doubts and revelations that converge with truth.
"But who reads poetry?" Take one of my workshops and see how the poetry of other authors inspires you to dig deep within your own senses. Find a poet you love and read a poem aloud. Try writing one yourself...
My poems aim to be accessible, though hopefully not cliche. They've been published in Poets Reading The News, Tuck Magazine, by Kind of A Hurricane Press in an anthology called Secrets and Dreams (samples below.) One day I hope to put together a chapbook, but in the meantime I regularly post poetry on Instagram and Twitter to accompany my photos . Included here is my Instagram feed.
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April 2018 Poets Reading The News:
My Best Friend Was Murdered Again
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March 2018 Tuck Magazine:
Tell Us The Names of the Killers and
Pow Pow
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Twitter Feed
I love sharing "micro-poems" almost daily on Twitter.
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Instagram Feed
(Please note the line breaks on clickable Instagram images below below do not appear correctly...
Go to my original Instagram page to see correct poem line breaks.)
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Secrets and Dreams Anthology
(Available on Amazon.com)
by Kind of A Hurricane Press
Poetry: Better Thank Most and
From The Other Side
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Better Than Most
hers were pink dreams
round curved crowd edges
surging streams about
the masses
in and out her head
they ran while
shouting in the church
began
Hallelujah!
while yellow sunlit puddles beckoned bare floors
to red sandal toes
or little legs of ants creeping cross
her itching nose to brown ground
wanting six legs
had to get somewhere
else
if only
What? You? Doin'?
grandma’s hair like silver windows lacing sky in secrets maybe
nobody see, don’t go away in the next blink
white and blue together smoothed the torn-up patches
like mama’s dress
like her but
feeling good
Sit up, girl!
and tiny white sounds
tickling ears
oh yes
singin’ that pretty pretty song they did
even with the yelling up the orange crooked stairs
and the big ol’ tv drowning the moaning
and the special green glass on the tippy table tippin’
and the guy in the red kitchen trippin’
and the smoke so heavy coughin’ tunnels
and the thick, thick liquor air on top of old burgers
and the wrappers stickin’ under feet
and the black door open to any ol’ stranger danger
and the darkness
oh, mama
the darkness
the light song sang away, anyway
and her pink dreams
always a flyin’
like rainbows
through her pink story
maybe better
than most
glassy eyes
up there
who couldn’t
see
nothin’
From The Other Side
(for Eric)
I heard you
when the sun slid low
rowing through a thousand reflections of river bed slow
your call heaven's rocket
a hawk from pink sky
raining such shivers in my limbs
every part sure
of pine lanky you
I saw you clearly creme bald head
no, not a hawk
eyes sure as stars
hooked to mine
promising dreams are life
and heaven comes to those
daring to take all of the sky in one breath
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