Anatomy

About the poem

This poem was published in issue 44 of Brittle Star.

The poem came from a writing prompt at a workshop. The prompt was to write a poem where the first line ended “…was stone and water.” That’s a pretty open brief, and to this day I don’t know exactly where this poem came from.

The poem is about how people can project expectations on you and then blame you for not meeting those (often unstated) expectations. I didn’t know this was a particular preoccupation of mine, but the wonderful thing about writing poetry and writing prompts in particular is that you can surprise yourself with what comes out. Sometimes I have an idea of what I want to say and others, like this poem, come from somewhere else, some part of me that I don’t really know about but that nevertheless seems to have poems locked inside.

Perhaps that is also part of my anatomy.