PROSE - Poetry | eilee george

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Eilee has been writing poetry since the age of nine. Here’s how she explains:

INTRO

I’m the youngest of three kids. When I was little more than a toddler, my mom, tired of talking baby talk to her kids, showed me a dictionary. She showed me how to use it and worked with me on Phonics to be sure I knew my alphabet, diphthongs, compound vowels, and told me that language was the key to almost everything important in life. I started out with a child’s dictionary of course, but graduated to the college version soon enough. By the age of eight I had a formidable vocabulary rivaling that of most adults. Mom had lots of other books, which included fascinating storybooks from Alcott to Kipling to Zola, and a thick poetry anthology entitled, “The Best Loved Poems of the American People”. It had categories for any mood: Humor and Whimsey, Animals, and Love and Friendship became my favorites. Just as I had reacted to seeing art, I read others’ words bringing thoughts to life, that magic of making something from where once there was nothing, and I thought, “I want to do that.”

At nine I had begun my first fledgling attempts at poetry. It was the juvenile way: make it rhyme and that’s all that mattered. This is what is behind much of the snobbishness against rhyming poetry, because too many amateurs think that way. It wasn’t until I got a handle on structure and meter, on internal rhymes, on a natural, almost conversational style, that it started to be good. By that time I was in high school.

After graduating university, I was privileged to meet an internationally-published poet in his art gallery; we spoke of many things creative, and when I mentioned I liked writing poetry myself, he invited me back to have a reading of them. He said they were excellent, but what would bring my work to the next level was to have layers of story in them via metaphor. He said to always aim to say more than you’re saying. It was the best advice I ever had.

In art school I joined a poetry group outside of my classes. We were all pretty advanced. We each wrote topics to throw into a hat; we would weekly read a poem we had written from the previous week – and draw the next random topic from the hat. We had the week to write it, inspiration or not. This is when I learned the vital lesson that you don’t need inspiration to work – you work for inspiration – it comes. I can write about anything on demand now; it’s a killer tool to have.

I’ve written ballads, limericks, sonnets, sestinas, diamond-shape poems, haiku, you name it. I dabble in free verse sometimes. Poetry has become so flexible, that between it, my essays, short stories, blog posts, little mantra-esque words of wisdom…I had to call the whole category Prose. But there’s still poetry…in word, in song; in life.

POEMS

The first poem I’ll put here was written early in the COVID lockdowns, during a new moon. My husband and I got the virus nearly before it hit the news in earnest. Who expected all of that? We had to adapt. We’re along for the ride.

Viral New Moon Haiku

More later.

♥ – Eilee

9/11: 20 Years Later

My recollections on this day are not unique or special in any way. My viewpoint of it in real time was far removed from those in it, those who were impacted directly by it, whether by death, injury, survival, by being a bystander just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, or as someone who lost someone they loved, cared about, or knew, or someone who helped in the thick of it; or one of those who helped in the aftermath. Theirs are the stories that should be heard.

Mine will be truncated. I lived in Chicago at the time, with a loved one working downtown, whose life and safety was in question as I tried in vain to contact while phone lines were jammed…but I lost no one; Chicago and many other major cities were spared after fearing the worst: how many more? When will this end? Where will someone strike next?

As a nation, we were shaken to the core. This doesn’t happen here.

Thousands of stories were revealed in the hours, days, weeks months and years that followed. They began to be increasingly inspiring, miraculous, encouraging in the midst of great tragedy that also unfolded chapter by chapter. We began to witness the kinship that a nation in tragedy feels for each other: the neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping strangers. In the places most affected, these accounts were so unprecedented in my own lifetime. I remembered my parents recounting how almost everyone in the nation worked together “for our boys” during WWII when they were kids, and I wondered if this was going to be like that was.

The human goodwill was infectious to other parts of the country. It seemed everyone had less than six degrees of separation from it. And we could relate to each other like humans should…for a while.

In the twenty years since, we as a nation, with exceptions of course, seem to have lost our gratitude, our empathy, our priorities, and our civility. We have largely lost our unity. Much of it was from political polarization and I’m not taking sides because I will not affiliate with any party; I feel none is worthy. Many other nations of the world shakes their heads at our hypocrisy. We are more divided than ever.

Many of us have forgotten. And will again. We need to be reminded.

Perhaps all of the memorials and remembrances today on the media are viewed by a few as overly sentimental, trite, obligatory, even propagandist. I do not. At any rate, I try to take something good out of anything and if possible, at the very least, a lesson or three.

I’m not astute enough to work in government. I cannot draft deft policy. I cannot change the world. But I can choose to check my own attitude, to not be misled or decide without due diligence, to not grow complacent and jaded, to be mindful of Who or what I come to worship and make corrections as necessary.

And if my view seems dark for a self-professed Christian, keep in mind two things: I am yet a fledgling in this walk, and all Christians are fallible and exist in the dichotomy of trying to transcend human imperfection while very much still shackled to it in this life. My eyes are open.

I’m just an artist. I can just make images, songs, poems, pleas for others to do the same daily fresh-slate commitment to reprioritize, to care, to love more, to make the most of life in the areas that count. But we as a species are easily distracted. Myopic beings that we are, it is astonishing how difficult it is to focus on what’s truly important. Don’t give up. Recommit. Recommit. Every day, recommit.

We need reminding.

Never forget.

♥–Eilee

Posted this verse on Twitter the previous day (9/10):

Dreamshine

Do not lock your dream away:

All safe and locked up tight–

It can make the world’s day

When it’s brought to light!

#VersesForgedByEileeGeorge #Photography #Poetry

The little poem above is actually inspired by my Twitter friends, many of whom are shutterbugs like me. I’m in a community of growing photographers on Twitter; some of whom are very early in their exploration of the medium. I have some 20 years of shooting under my belt, but haven’t really been formally trained or overly motivated in the medium for several years, until recently the bug bit me again. It is a supportive community that stands apart from a lot of areas of social media. Many including myself not only post, but promote and encourage others as well. There is a great deal of burgeoning talent. I also follow more seasoned professional photographers who inspire the rest of us. We’ve been answering, through posts of our individual work, numerous photography prompts and challenges, to enable us to be more observant and experimental in our approach to photography. We are all growing. It is a wonderful thing. To see some of these talented people, check out my Twitter feed!

♥–Eilee

More later.