A Birthday Poem

To quote the lovely Lily Aldrin from How I Met Your Mother.... "It's my birthday!!!!"

Yes - I am one of those. I love my birthday and I love birthdays in general. As far as I'm concerned, the whole month of October is basically my birthday month (isn't that how it works!?) Conveniently, it is also the best month. Fall. Halloween. Cider. Ghosts. Candles. Cool weather. I could keep on and on but "my birthday" is definitely on that list!

Last night, as I was laying in bed reflecting on the year, I was doom scrolling, as one does these days, and somehow stumbled onto a post about the best journal prompts for your zodiac. I wasn't really into the Libra prompt but it did eventually rabbit hole me into a post about the best poetry form to try based on your zodiac.

I generally enjoy the concept of astrology and definitely feel that I align with some of the main libra qualities (diplomatic, justice-seeking, grudge-carrying, indecisive, idealist, romantic, conflict-avoidance, artistic, impatient, stubborn...) but of course, I give a lot more credence to identifiers like Myers Briggs and the Enneagram. Luckily, I also enjoy poetry. So needless to say, this post from The Poetry Lab instantly had me intrigued.

I've loved writing ever since I was a kid in school and poetry is one form that I enjoy creating and reading. I even took a poetry elective in college (which I know has everything to do with my history major) and really enjoyed the exercises the professor gave us on a weekly basis. I prefer free verse poetry when I am feeling especially creative, but limiting yourself to a certain form can be a really fun challenge and pushes you to write something you normally wouldn't.

This article suggested that Libras, since they love collaboration, should write a "Golden Shovel" poem. This is not something I'd ever heard of before but as I read further, I understood why. Golden shovel poetry is a newer type of poetic form created by Terrance Hayes in the 2000s. It borrows lines from existing poems and uses words from that poem in each line of the new poem, and is usually utilized to pay homage to the original poem. The goal is for the line from the original poem should read vertically as the last word in each line of the new poem. For example: if the original poem line was "cats are cool," a golden shovel poem may read:

-I love my cats

-Because Tucker & Leo are

-Amazing, sweet, and so cool

This is obviously a simple example but you can see that if you read the last word of each line on the new poem, it vertically reads "cats are cool" - the original poem line.

I read up on some examples and really liked the suggestion to try using song lyrics. It seemed like a fun challenge so I thought I would write a golden shovel poem for my blog entry today with the theme of reflecting on my life so far, paying homage to my favorite writer - Ms. Taylor Alison Swift.

And now, inspired by the 2012 Red album containing one of my favorite songs, Treacherous, I give you my shovel poem:

Upon reflection, it has come to my realization that

Despite all your attempts, you can plan nothing

The path I yearn to follow leads me to somewhere both transcendent and safe

And sometimes that path changes where it is

But for what it’s worth

My heart still belongs to the

Islands, a destination to which I will always make the drive