Secrets of the Self -how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

The Rose – Vulnerability –

Sharing poetry is the most painful vulnerability. That was when I realized for the first time that pursuing life of art requires the warrior sensibility. You have to keep going, no matter what other people say and what they recommend. Some advice is good and some isn’t. We all need to develop our warrior instincts and our warrior sensibilities.

Poetry is a language it takes a lifetime to learn to speak. Luckily, other people speak it! Back when I was a new mother for the first time, I advertised for poets and assembled a book of over 50 poems, representing over 40 poets from 26 states, writing about the experience of being female, and called it The Feathered Violin. We printed 450 copies and shared it widely, all around the country.

In terms of sheer daring, this may have been one of the most daring things I’ve ever done!

POETRY

The world that seems to us so still

And echoes no reflection of our will

Somehow produced the seed that in us all

Resurrected us from worm to fish, to crawl

Upon the earth, to stand and then

Return a child to creep and crawl again

In some unending pattern, sane or not

Judging by the brain that this same seed begot

And yet within our every cell lies curled

A revolutionary flag to be unfurled

And lead us on to who knows what potential end

Beyond the reach of enemy or friend?

Can it be that simple balls of spinning glass

Possess the strength to lift from this morass

All that we are; though we don’t understand

This torch we pass so tenderly from hand to hand?