Wild Rose & Still Pilgrim
alter poetry ego
Hello, Poetry Friend
This month we’ve been reading through Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s collection Naked for Tea. It was only when I got to the end of the collection that I realized three poems had a person named Wild Rose in the title: “Wild Rose Steps in at the Circus,” “Wild Rose Goes on a Drive with God,” and “Wild Rose Chooses a Tail.”
Wild Rose is unforgettable. I don’t know if she is Trommer’s alter ego, but she is a true character in her own right. I’d watch a Netflix series of her exploits.
Here’s a link to Trommer’s “Wild Rose Goes on a Drive with God,” a poem that inspired one of my own.
Wild Rose made me think of another poetic character in another collection: Still Pilgrim by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell. Still Pilgrim might be the opposite of Wild Rose, but I like her very much too. Her tale is told through sonnets (thus proving that form poetry can be the most freeing way for a writer to play).
Here a link to two of O’Donnell’s Still Pilgrim poems: “To Be a Pilgrim” and “The Still Pilgrim Makes Dinner.”
Do you have a character who has been slipping into your poems? Maybe it’s an actual wild rose. Maybe it’s an actual pilgrim. Maybe it’s a black cat staring into your middle distance. Whoever it is, they may need a few poems to get their message across.
Here’s my poem, in which I’m a little bit Still Pilgrim, a little bit Wild Rose.
Thanks so much for reading along with these poems by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer this month. I hope you to spend more time with her poetry and let it inspire some of your own.
Poetry Journal
Read a Wild Rose poem and a Still Pilgrim poem.
What’s different about these two characters? What’s the same? Is either one a little like you? Does one of them make you a little crazy?
Read the poem you like best again, aloud (if you didn’t the first time). Is there anything you notice this time that you want to add to your journal?
Write your own poem from the point of view of an alter ego. If you like, email me what you write.
Take care, Megan