For today’s prompt, write a remix poem. That is, remix one of your poems from earlier in the month. There are many ways to do this. Turn a free verse poem into a traditional form (using lines from the original poem). Or use erasure to cut down a long poem into a short one. Or expand a short poem into a longer version. Get creative with it. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest
I reread all the poems I’ve written so far this month, hoping one of them would stand out as ready for a remix. Last Tuesday, I wrote one about freedom, and called it “the hope of freedom.”
Yesterday on my social media, I posted links to YouTube videos of recitations of two great poems about hope, because in addition to being National Poetry Month, it’s the National Month of Hope. So my idea is to switch up the title, and write about “the freedom of hope.” Maybe not a genuine remix of the poem, but at least it I remixed the title. I’ll include my original freedom poem at the end.
Hope
Freedom to believe
how things are is not
how they always must be
Is a new dawn,
a new day
alive with possibility
Change could be
for the good
for the better
for the best
Hope survived the worst;
I can face the rest.
Free/not free
Is it possible to be free?
Free of other people’s expectations?
Free from your own judgment of your perceived shortcomings?
Free to do what fills you and avoid what wears you down?
So many self-imposed chains
locked tight.
Easier to submit
than to figure out how
to break loose.
So hard even to see the bonds;
harder still to escape them.
Can you believe enough in freedom
to reach for it?