In Pursuit of Poetry

March 10 - Julia Cameron - Words For It

March 10, 2018
I managed to find, in a tiny out of the way used bookshop, another little Julia Cameron gem of a book - The Creative Life. It is a 'creativity journal'. Not what I expected, but I am enjoying it immensely. And that got me to thinking, Julia Cameron is a writer, a novelist, a poet and a playwright.... and a composer, too, I believe. So I went and googled some of her poems. I came across this little diamond. It is at the end of her book, The Artist's Way - my first introduction to her some twenty five years ago. (It was published in 1992, but I found it in 1997). Since then I have gobbled up anything I could find of her work.
http://high-road-artist.com/7404/wisdom-wednesdays/words-for-it-a-poem-by-julia-...

Words For It

I wish I could take language
And fold it like cool, moist rags.
I would lay words on your forehead.
I would wrap words on your wrists.
“There, there,” my words would say–
Or something better.
I would murmur,
“Hush” and “Shh, shhh, it’s all right.”
I would ask them to hold you all night.
I wish I could take language
And daub and soothe and cool
Where fever blisters and burns,
Where fever turns yourself against you.
I wish I could take language
And heal the words that were the wounds
You have no names for.

I have had to read this poem over several times... and what I get from it is a kind of soft place to land. Cameron wants to sooth us, by letting us know that we too can reach out with our words to heal and to find that inner core of our selves that wants to create.

We may struggle with doubt, but it is with our like-minded friends - our writer friends - who get us and understand what we are going through. We each give language to help heal each other and give each other faith and encouragement to carry on when the going gets rough.

I thank her for that... and I hope that in sharing this, I help to bolster you up as well.

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