Forgiveness

Welcome to Verselove—a space for educators to nurture their writing lives and celebrate poetry in the community. Each day in April, we come together to explore the power of poetry for both heart and mind. Write with care, for yourself and your readers. When responding, reflect back the beauty you find—lines that linger, ideas that inspire. Enjoy the journey.

Our Host: Wendy Everard

Wendy Everard is a high school English teacher and writer living in central New York.  Her role as mother and teacher has given her plenty to write about since she started writing personal narrative and poetry, lifelong hobbies that were reignited when she joined a summer institute with the Seven Valleys branch of the National Writing Project a few years ago and began mentoring student teachers. Recently, she was delighted and honored to receive an Educator of Excellence Award from the New York State English Council.   She teaches in Cazenovia, New York.

Inspiration

In his wonderful book of essays, A Year of Moons, writer Joseph Bruchac says this:

“It’s January here in our Adirondack foothills.  The time of Alamikos, the Abenaki term for the first moon of the new year.  In English, it’s the New Year’s Greeting Moon.  It’s the time when people would go from one wigwam to another – nowadays one house to another – and speak the New Year’s greeting,
Anhaldam mawi kassipalilawalan.
Its meaning, translated into English, is, ‘Forgive me for any wrong I may have done you.’

“It’s a recognition of the fact that there is always more than one way to look at any situation, any human interaction, because it would be said not just to people you know you’ve wronged, but to everyone.  Everyone.”

Process

Your poem can take any form you wish.  Bruchac urges us to “think of the times when your own feelings were injured by a word or deed from someone who was totally oblivious to the fact that they’d wounded you.  It happens more often than we think.  We’re in a hurry and we brush someone off.  We make a remark offhandedly or say something that we may think is humorous but in fact cuts another person to the quick.”  Or think of a time that this happened to you.  Or just write a general poem of forgiveness – giving it, asking for it, or struggling with it.  Reflect, and write a poem that captures the spirit of “anhaldam mawi kassipalilawalan.”

Here is a great website that offers some poetic forms if you’re interested in experimenting with one today!

Wendy’s Poem

This is the hardest poem to write
At this unsorry moment
As darkness hides the light

As might insists that it makes right
Collective energy is spent
This is the hardest poem to write

A country sees our sorry plight
And evil enjoys quick ascent
As darkness hides the light

Bleak January eyes the fight
On tongues, apologies ferment
This is the hardest poem to write

But now, here’s April – month of light
And time assists begrudged lament
As darkness bows to light

Apologies to Savior, bright
Whose heart my hate must surely rend
This is the hardest poem to write
While darkness hides the light.

Your Turn

Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers.