Why Sarah Will Never Suffer Writer's Block by Don Colburn

Why Sarah Will Never Suffer Writer's Block
by
Don Colburn

We ordered a medium – half pepper and onion,

half plain, no mushrooms, no meat –

and waited for our number to be called.

I was wishing it could all be so simple

and grumbling how badly the morning had gone,

how hard to get started.

Then Sarah, who's eight, said Okay,

here's what you do, go look

in a book, find a topic you like

and whatever it is, make up a rhyme –

like you could go

the blue whale

has a slippery tail . . .

She shrugged, rolled her quibble-proof eyes

and turned her hands inside out: See?

Now it was my turn to shrug and our number

came up, but Sarah kept on:

You know – the biggest animal on earth?

But you could pick Halloween or jelly beans

or a ghost. It could be anything.

This poem first appeared in Explorations and later appeared in Another Way to Begin
and As If Gravity Were a Theory (Cider Press, 2006).
Used here with the author's permission.

Don Colburn came to poetry late and unexpectedly, in the midst of a newspaper career. A longtime reporter for The Washington Post and The Oregonian, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. He has an MFA in poetry from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Colburn has published six poetry collections, including five chapbooks, the latest titled Purchase. His writing honors honors include the Discovery/The Nation Award, the Finishing Line Press Poetry Prize, the Cider Press Review Book Award, the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo. He lives in Falmouth, Maine. Learn more about Don at www.doncolburn.net.

road2happy:
We all need a little 'Sarah' in our lives, don't we? Thanks for the reminder- inspiration is all around me- if I will just open my eyes!
Posted 04/02/2011 06:05 PM

LindaCrosfield:
Great start to the month! Love "quibble-proof eyes" (as does Katrina, I see). So much truth in this one.
Posted 04/01/2011 11:03 AM

wendy morton:
All you have to do is open your eyes and there is a poem. Sarah knows this and so does Don. A delight.
Posted 04/01/2011 10:54 AM

trailpny:
Love it.
Posted 04/01/2011 10:17 AM

Patricia Esposito:
Lovely. How easily we can access the delight in the world when we remember that creativity requires nothing more than a moment of altered thinking.
Posted 04/01/2011 09:44 AM

Carol Hauer:
So simple! "Out of the mouths of babes..." What a refreshingly delightful and direct approach to tackling a problem or a task! Why get complicated? Way to go, Sarah!
Posted 04/01/2011 08:52 AM

Katrina:
. . . 'her quibble-proof eyes'. . . She is welcome to visit my website at www.writingtank.com. My neice, Etta, just ten, might start a dialogue from Scotland.
Posted 04/01/2011 04:54 AM

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