New Poetry Project

Women of the Bible; with and an excerpt of a new poem

I’ve started a poetry project tentatively titled “Women of the Bible.” I want to write a poem for select women from the Bible, writing in the first person from the woman’s perspective. Even though I am starting with Eve, I don’t plan to go in consecutive order. I want to jump to the Virgin Mary right after Eve. Many of the Church Fathers saw Mary and Eve as a type and antitype. I would like to explore this relationship and write about what I find.

As with any poetry project, you need to set parameters. Some see rules in poetry as too restrictive. But they give a nice guideline to work within, allowing the poem to flow, giving starts and stops, taming the chaos, especially when telling a story in poetry.

I chose to write in blank verse but restrict myself to 10 syllables per line. I have also chosen to restrict stanzas to 10 lines, similar to sonnets. Yet, I will not use a rhyming scheme. Instead, I will use some alliteration like Old English poetry, however, with no stresses in the line. I am toying with the idea of dialog being a different structure, and perhaps rhyme creating a poem within a poem. But I haven’t worked through this yet in my mind.

As I study each character in the Scriptures, verse by verse, I plan to post here some insights I find along the way that may or may not be part of my poem, but capture my imagination.

Below are two stanzas of the second draft of my poem for Eve:

My soul catches fire, flames with the wind
That was a whisper, and waltzes in step
With the Dreamer. The flare is fanned, and fills,
Igniting passions yet practiced and played.
From my head a heavy heat soars over
My body. I feel the world the first time:
Cool as stone the earth beneath, still grasses
Touch soft my sides, a sun’s warmth shines upon
My breast; I grope to grasp the ground, my hands
Feel blunt blades and cool dirt beneath the boughs.

Two eyes of mine twitch and flit, open wide.
White light shines a world yet I to witness;
I focus my eyes to center to find
A pinhole black appear brisk then burst bright
Colors myriad splash on canvas sight
Mine eyes wide with wonder, I see lines and
Shapes of rocks, trees with leaves, fruit, rooks and bees,
Yellow lilies aside lively waters
Flowing over gray rock amid green grass,
Violet flowers with fluttering flies.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.