A Poet (and she didn't even know it)

Even though I update this blog regularly and write way too much about my wedding all the time, I have a confession to make. I HATE writing. I was that student in school who ALWAYS put off writing papers until the night before they were due b/c I just couldn't stomach the idea of sitting down in front of the computer to type. I would do every single other piece of homework first, before my writing assignments. Yet somehow, I am the daughter of an amazingly talented writer. ...and not just any kind of writer either. My mommy is a poet.

This is my idea of writing a poem:

"Haikus are easy. But sometimes they don't make sense. Refrigerator"
Source

Whereas my mom writes beautiful poems like this:

Hurricane

wind's indian burn
around a missing arm
manic spiral
the fury-bottle shatters
oak-corpses fall like pick-up sticks
spoons     plates     forks
spray over the beach
the light wood bathhouse
wafts across the road
the road itself rises
straight up
to a jagged edge
exposing pebbles
         layers
all that makes a road

i'm dorothy
lifted over flung islands
hens-and-chicks we call them
cuttyhunk
martha's vineyard
nantucket
up over cloud formations
             over europe
                  china
                    maui

through violet-tinger mists

to Laguna de los Cerros

the jaguar thunder-god's bled
so much rain onto the earth
all the pyramid-hills
are covered by a moss of trees

                 -by my mommy
                   From the book "Do Not Give Me Things Unbroken"

I love that my mom's poems use tons of imagery as well as all of the great literary sound effects -- cacophony, assonance, dissonance, you name it -- to really create images, sounds, and emotions. (Yeah, I totally paid attention in high school English class... even if I did procrastinate on my papers!)

So of course when it came time to figure out what we would do in terms of readings (and readers) at our wedding, it was a big no-brainer. We would ask my wonderful mommy to read a poem :-) I am delighted that she has agreed to write a new poem especially for the occasion of our marriage, and I'm sure we will absolutely love whatever she comes up with.

Are you having any special readings at your wedding? How did you choose them? ...and how did you choose your readers?