When I sit down to write, sometimes ideas don’t come easily. When that happens, I’m a kid again staring at a test and not knowing the first answer…and I panic. When that happens, I borrow a line from another’s work to get me started, search for revision opportunities, or change direction completely. When that happens, I’m often surprised at what happens next.
So, this week when I was stuck on a poetry prompt for my poetry group, I changed direction and went in search of something I might use for Poetry Friday. I found an old poem I had written about October and started revising. I soon realized I could also use my revision work for my group’s poetry prompt – to create a paradox ending.
October
by Rose Cappelli
October bids farewell to shorts and tees
welcomes sweater weather
it’s baseball’s last blast
bowing to football’s roar and rumble
it’s pumpkins and apples
and chili and stew
a spider’s web
marked with morning dew
it’s that sudden frost
on a milkweed pod
it’s feasting on roasted sunflower seeds
and composting piles of windswept leaves
October begins with shades of jade
and ends with a red-gold blaze.
Draft, RoseCappelli2023
Bridget has the roundup today at wee words for wee ones where she is happy dancing and spreading joy for her birthday. Be sure to stop by for lots of poetry goodness.
Imagine the Possibilities 
Fabulous! You are a poet-dancer, all limber and flexible and leaping! I’m not a sports nut, but I really love the baseball/football stanza. xo
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Thanks Irene. In 2002 I read an article in the newspaper that used the phrase “football’s thunder drowning the final gasp of professional baseball” about the transition of summer into fall. I loved that line and it has obviously stayed with me and influenced my writing. (I still have the article.)
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I love hearing about your process, Rose and how you came to that paradox ending. Yay for “red-gold blaze”!
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Rose, it is fun revising to make each poem more powerful than the past. I also like the stanza about sports. Your ending stanza shares another powerful image of nature’s everchanging desires.
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Rose, I love each stanza’s contrast – a juxtaposition of hope!
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Every part celebrates fall for me, Rose! And I, too, love reading about your journey. I often start with a line from another, sometimes not even a poem, & it’s a start! Good for you for finding all those images and turning them just right for you.
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Thanks, Linda.
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Rose, lovely poem! It got me in the mood for the pumpkin carving that I need to do! : )
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Rose, this is magical. It starts out sort of ordinary and then travels to a world where everything’s brighter and more precise and more…revealed. Wow–this is wonderful.
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Thanks, Laura! It seems I revise something every time I read it, so I know it’s not quite there yet. I appreciate your encouragement.
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Thank you for sharing your strategies for pivoting rather than getting stuck! Your poem captures the transition known as October perfectly…especially in that last stanza!
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Love all of the transformations you’ve done with this poem. I love how we love puzzling over the words.
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Enjoyed your October poem!! My favorite stanzas:
“it’s pumpkins and apples
and chili and stew
a spider’s web
marked with morning dew”
Beautiful maple tree too!!
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Thanks, Jama!
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Your poem is a beautiful celebration of fall!
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Thanks, Linda!
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I agree it is surprising what happens during revision, the creative process that is so fun experience. Love the contrast of the “jade” with the “red-gold blaze.” It got me thinking of how fall colors transform, the brightest for last it seems.
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