Thursday Travelling Poetry Show: Rainbow Revelation

The theme suggested for this week's Travelling Poetry Show was to Confront The Fear.

Delia said: "Is there a form that frightens you? Try it. Does the idea of submitting a piece of your writing to a publication make your heart pound? Go for it anyway and be sure to share about it. Is it time you had a creative "coming-out" with that friend of yours or the boss at work? Give them one of your poems to read, go ahead...I dare you! Is reading aloud what makes you weak in the knees? Find a group to read to and face that anxiety head-on. Are you apprehensive about reading certain poets...crack the spine on that book anyway and see what lessons might be waiting for you there..."

I would like to share with you a piece from Yoko Ono's Rainbow Revelation, which I first read in the collection of essays edited by Eddie and Debbie Shapiro called The Way Ahead - A Visionary Perspective for the New Millenium. Yoko Ono says:
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........Bless you for your fear for it is a sign of wisdom
........Do not hold yourself in fear.
........Transform the eneregy to flexibility and you will
........be free from what you fear.

When I searched for the full text online of Rainbow Revelation, I found that part of it is now song lyrics. I've never heard her perform it. Have you? In the book, there are 10 verses (1 page) of what she says was originally a 100-page document. A few other verses:

Bless you for your anger for it is a sign of rising energy.
Direct not to your family, waste not on your enemy.
Transform the energy to versatility and it will bring you
prosperity.

Bless you for your sorrow for it is a sign of vulnerability.
Share not with your family, direct not to yourself.
Transform the energy to sypathy and it will bring
you love.

Bless you for your greed for it is a sign of great capacity.
Direct not to your family. Direct not to the world.
Transform the energy to giving Give as much as you wish
to take, and you will receive satisfaction....

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Time has been more scarce than I'd have liked this week. I know now that I'm not going to get around to writing anything in a "frightening" form. I've tried villanelles, sestinas, sonnets in the past. I do very badly with them. And I know I won't do any better if it just stays at that. So sometime I will come back to formal poetry and stay with it - get through the barrier of fear of doing something really schlocky and predictable and be willing to do it anyway.

I took part in a reading to launch a big community festival this week. But that's not something new to me. It was among poets I know and respect. My work was well-received, so I can't claim to have faced any of my fears in doing that.

What frightens me? Well, here's something that makes me nervous. Some time ago, a friend suggested that a good way to market poetry might be to print it up very nicely on parchment, decorate it, and sell a "limited edition" of perhaps 25 signed copies of a single poem (ooh, my stomach is scrunching up right now thinking about it). Well, I'm going to float the idea. I'm not offering to sell these to you, my dear blog-friends, but asking your opinion of the idea. Would people want to have such a thing? If I decide to make some up ... say next week, and offer them to some of you (randomly chosen) as a gift on the occasion of my 200th post on this blog (which will, coincidentally happen sometime next week), would those whose names come out of the hat give me honest feedback on them?

Ok. I did something scary. It's out there.
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The Travelling Poetry Show has set up camp this week with Carolee, the Polkadot Witch. Pull in and sit round the fire a while. Tell us what scares you in poetry.