Failed attempts, a heatwave poem

Days 12- 15 of 18 days of small creative acts

I haven’t been posting, but I have been carrying on with my small creative acts over the past few days. Just in a sightly more bitty and over-heated kind of way.

I don’t currently have much to show for it; that’s just the way it goes sometimes isn’t it!

On Friday I went down a wormhole of researching how caterpillars transform into butterflies. I am very interested in change processes at the moment and found some interesting psychology essays that talked about how caterpillars break down into goo-complete ‘bug soup’- inside a chrysalis before bursting out in their new form.

A bit of digging around online tells me that whilst this is a very poetic analogy for the change process, it’s not quite scientifically accurate. They don’t break down completely, but lots of the cells that are no longer needed do self-destruct and get recycled for what is needed to ‘become butterfly’ rather than ‘stay as caterpillar’

I collected lots of interesting words about this like ‘Eclosion’- the moment the caterpillar fully transforms and emerges as a butterfly, and ‘imaginal discs’- the blueprint the caterpillar is born with, giving it everything it needs to transform.

So far this research has led me to lots of interesting videos and facts, but my attempts at writing about it have been rife with cliches. I’ve been down these cul-de-sacs before and have found it is still worth keeping the drafted document; very often a new way into the topic will present itself a couple of months down the line. If not, then at the very least I have learnt a lot about insect metamorphosis!

Yesterday, I tried a different tack- back to the poetry prompts I love (I use Jo Bell’s Poetic License Patreon page) to try and shake things up a little. The prompt was TEN,

Here’s what I wrote:

How

What has that got to do with ten, I hear you ask? The exercise I picked was to think of ten images or moments that jump out from the past few days and write them down. As ever- no overthinking. Pick one and focus on it, see what happens.

As I started writing, I realised I wanted to limit myself to ten lines in each stanza, so I stuck with that. It made me trim some of the fat that had no business being in the poem.

Invitation to play

This is a great exercise to try, and an easy way into writing something that stands out from your week. Limits are very useful when faced with the blank page. Pick any number you like!

Much love

Em x