Today’s model poem is Won’t You Celebrate With Me by Lucile Clifton.  You can click the link to read the original poem.

I have a lot of energy wrapped up in this draft and I need to let it set before I rework. This came out in a white, hot heat.   Here’s my first draft of poem modeled in the same style.

 

Celebrate With Me

won’t you celebrate with me
what I have become
a woman strong and brave
enough to speak her mind,
usually,
a wife, a lover
daughter, mother
a friend to few
I hold dear
a non-friend
to some
for reasons I don’t understand
born into confusion
about how to become
myself
how to trust I had
arrived
in all my glory
before barreling past
my destination
forgetting
not knowing
I was enough
I am enough
I AM ENOUGH
come celebrate
with me that
I have climbed
my mountains
cheered the sunrise
knowing, knowing
yes
I am stronger
at all the broken places.

—Susan Taylor Brown