The Persuasive Beauty
of Imperfection
Poems by
Marguerite K. Flanders
Marguerite Keil Flanders is one of the founding members of Ocean State Poets, a group that strives to bring poetry to all communities in Rhode Island, through readings, workshops and special events. She has led workshops for over 20 years, in libraries, schools, at conferences and Women’s Centers.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including Boston Review, Yankee Magazine, Ballard Street Poetry Journal, Coal City Review, Comstock Review, Connecticut River Review, Caesura, Main Street Rag, Nimrod International Journal, Poetry East, Poetalk, Snail Mail Review, and The Smoking Poet.
Since 2008 she has been part of a team that gives poetry workshops every other Saturday, at the Men’s Medium Security Prison in Cranston, RI. She has been interviewed, and featured in programs, about her work with prison poets. Margie is currently offering workshops and private sessions in her studio in Wakefield, RI. She can be reached at:
[email protected]
Untitled
This poem is waiting
to be rewritten,
new nouns stitched
to old verbs, until
they moan and rattle.
No mourning
over lost words,
rejected metaphors.
Only the shuffling
of letters, one long
scrabble game,
diving over and over
into the mercurial pool
of language. Maybe
the first line wants
more flash, drama,
and the last line
needs a vacation, tired
of tying up loose ends,
can’t other lines
do the heavy lifting?
But most of the words
are already asleep,
snoring, and dreaming
of other poems
they would rather be in
if only they could slip away.