Poem of the Week April Ridge

April Ridge

April Ridge lives in the expansive hopes and dreams of melancholy rescue cats. She thrives on strong coffee, and lives for danger. In the midst of Indiana pines, she follows her heart out to the horizon of reality and hopes never to return to the misty sands of the nightmarish 9 to 5. April aspires to beat seasonal depression with a well-carved stick, and to one day experience the splendor of the Cucumber Magnolia tree in bloom. April has a forthcoming debut chapbook, Monstrous (Pure Sleeze Press, 2024) in September 2024, and can be found on Facebook and Instagram.

Backstory

This poem was crafted in a workshop called You Got the Beat, led by John Burroughs (former US Beat Poet Laureate and badass poet!) and Sandra Feen (former Ohio Beat Poet Laureate). The particular exercise used was to pick a Beat poet quote from a hat and create a poem inspired by the quote.

I plucked a quote by Gregory Corso ‘Ah, by avoiding society you become separate from society and being separate from society is being BEAT.’ (from Variations on a Generation, 1959) and modeled the poem after Belief & Technique For Modern Prose by Jack Kerouac. It is also an acrostic poem.

By Avoiding Society, You Become

For the spirits of Gregory Corso and Jack Kerouac

Be that which you aspire to follow
You only truly know
All of yourself by closing your mind to fear
Voicing that which you were scared to say
Opening to doors of perception to the weird
Inclusive of your flaws
Denying the foresight of hesitation
Inviting joy
Negating self talk which strives to stifle
Get right with your scruples
Slash them to pieces
Open the door and fling your inhibitions
Crawl on all fours
Inspire your closest inner child to bloom
Envelop everyone with your inner shine
To share joy
You must let go of yourself piece by piece
You must let in the doubt and flaunt it
On display to show we all have fear
Unbeknownst to ego we taunt the grave
By shuttering one’s mind to
Ever giving up on the journey
Clasping
Onto hope
Meeting the day
Embracing love as the best answer

© 2024 April Ridge