October 11: Alice Munro, Found Poem, Good Night

I'm pretty darn tired right now, and in about six hours, I have to get up with my daughter to go to the dance convention.  An early warm up and hip hop class.  I want to go to sleep.

In honor of Alice Munro's recent Nobel Prize in Literature, I'm posting a poem I found online.  It's a found poem by Elizabeth Crawford and is based on Munro's Runaway.

Saint Marty hopes you like it, although he's too tired to really care if you don't.

Found Poem – Alice Munro

Posted on June 4, 2011 by 1sojournal

For Writers Island writing prompt: Contingent
http://writersisland.wordpress.com/

Found Poem

That Is What Happen

You put it away
for a little while,
and now and again
you look in the closet,
for something else
and you remember
and you think, soon.

Then it becomes
something that is just
there, in the closet,
and other things
get crowded in front
of it and on top of it
and finally you don’t
think about it at all.

The thing that was your
bright treasure. You don’t
think about it. A loss
you could not contemplate
at one time, and now it
becomes something
you can barely remember.

That is what happens.

Alice Munro in Runaway
Elizabeth Crawford 6/4/11

Notes: Was reading the above novel last night and came across this quote which I thought read like a poem. Then found the prompt this morning and went back to the quote. I know that found poems are usually taken from technical writing or newspaper and magazine articles. This is a bit of a cheat because it comes from fiction. But when I saw the word contingent, I thought of the many things we care about deeply, even people, who somehow end up in that closet, barely remembered. Our treasures are contingent on our awareness, and continued nurture, to retain their definition as treasures.

I'm too tired to look for a different picture of Munro