How It Works

  1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Forgiveness

How does it creep into arteries, 
level blood pressure 
and wipe clean 
the slate of anger 
held close to the chest?

Look long into the mirror, 
be tender with the face you see, 
then to the blistered past, 
the entire landscape, 
the smallest detail 
as in a Brueghel painting,

Then revise and revise 
until the story changes shape 
and you, no longer the jailor, 
have learned to love 
what is left.

— Mary McCue
https://streetlightmag.com/2020/03/23/meet-your-local-poets-spotlight-on-mary-mccue/

If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Writing From The Inside Out

The next Read-Around is 4/30/25 at 5:00 PM PDT

My Thoughts

Forgiveness bears more brunts than can be cataloged in the book of war crimes, comes even when there is no end to damages, even when justice fails and nothing can right the wrong. Of all things that gape us in awe, nothing frees us from torment like the long sigh of forgiveness when the straightjacket slips off, when the chains of rage and anguish drop away, breaking the bond between the once entangled hearts of those who suffered atrocities and those who perpetrated them. Forgiveness dissolves the plaque of hate that blocked the arteries, making room for life to flow freely through the veins once again. See how the other in the mirror then softens, how the scorched soul then opens to the light. And as Mary McCue asserts in her poem, Forgiveness, we drop the role of jailor and come to love what is left.

When I looked online for Mary McCue’s Forgiveness poem, there was to an earlier version from 2021 of Writing From The Inside Out using her poem; Here is that link as well: https://www.nickleforce.com/inside-out-2021-week-13

Prompt Ideas

  1. Write a poem of fogiveness for someone who has hurt you.

  2. Describe how forgoiveness manifests in you. How does it creep though your arteries and level your blood pressure? How does it wipe clean the slate of anger?

  3. Are you willing to look long in the mirror and be tender with the face you see? If so, write about that experience .

  4. What is your general relationsip with the past? Do you spend a lot of time in the past, retelling stories from the past, or thinking about what you have done or not done or what has happened to you? Or do you tend to be more focused on the present or the future? How do you balance timeframes inside of you? Write a poem about your relationship with the time of your life.

  5. Take McCue’s idea of a story having a “shape.” Consdier some harm you suffered or wrong you endured and describe the shape of it in your life. How would the shape change (or how has it changed) once you let go of the hurt. How could you retell the story of a hurt to yourself or someone you love in a way that honors the truth of it but also frees you.

  6. Write a dialogue with the part of you that serves as your jailor. What does that part have to say about your misdeeds and your imprisonment? How does that part feel and think about its job as jailor. How might you help to relinquish the job as jailor.

  7. If all of your anger and hurt were somehow burned away or relaased, what would you like left that you could love?

  8. As usual, write about whatever else inspires you form the poem or from life.