When I teach writing and literature, I often use prompts—a line from a poem or a story to help students find their way, to give them a path. Prompts are a way of reaching back to those who came before. They can remind us, teach us, inform us, if we listen.

My painting and my poem this month grew out of reading Elizabeth Bishop’s, “In The Waiting Room” and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s, “I am Waiting.”

Maybe you know other poems or stories about waiting. Share them with me, please! Maybe this ink&pixel will prompt your own creation or new thought. Write back and let me know. I love hearing from you.

If you like this dispatch, please share with others and encourage them to subscribe. Thank you!

The Third Ink&Pixel

Audio of Ink&Pixel poems available here

For hi-res versions of artwork, go here

Waiting Room
a poem by Jan Donley

Elizabeth Bishop, not quite

seven years old, waited in a

waiting room on February 5, 1918.

She read a National Geographic

magazine where she fell inside

another world, where she became

other at the same time became

I, at the same time waited.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti waited

for a true frontier, where

stepping over borders meant

discovery, meant crossing the

divide, meant sharing the earth,

meant America would finally,

finally grow up, meant rebirth,

meant embrace, meant wonder.

I wait in waiting rooms, reading

magazines, waiting for experts

to explain pains and pangs

and previously undiagnosed

predicaments. I am waiting

for a yes, for a sign, for a

way in or a way out.

I am waiting for the day.

I am waiting for Elizabeth

and Lawrence and Gwendolyn

and Langston and Edna

and Emily and all poets to remind

the world of rhyme and rhythm and

the simple lesson of wonder, of

curiosity of moment, of I, of other,

of you waiting, of me waiting.

If anything in this dispatch speaks to you, drop me a line at inkandpixel@jandonley.com.

And please forward to others who might be interested.

And for anyone who hasn’t yet subscribed, you can do so here