The Poetry of Spinning

Once a friend gave me a birthday card with this little charm. It reads "In the rhythm of knitting needles, there is music for the soul." Unknown. If there is music in knitting, there is poetry in spinning. All are stories of transformation. 

A poem begins with a single word, a noticing, a thread.* That thread may come as a wisp of the wind or from an underground current. Energy builds in words and lines as sounds and spaces invite comparison. Spinning begins with a bit of fiber, a tool, and the human body. Rotating a spindle or wheel creates energy called twist. As the spinner allows twist into fiber, yarn is created. Each yarn is unique to the spinner. 

March 2023 - BFL Fiber 

A poem contains the energy of breath. Often the rhythm of a poem echoes the rhythm of the poet's breath. Iambic pentameter, the most common meter, may exist because five beats is the average length of speech easily supported by a cycle of breath. 

A good poem spurs the reader to see differently. Metaphor employs delight and surprise to turn one thing into another. A path in the snowy woods becomes a choice in life. Coming upon the turn of metaphor and the supporting language creates joy. Each experience of a poem is unique to reader and poet. 

Poetry and spinning are old stories. The origin of the word "spin" is "spen" meaning to make, to draw out or stretch. Poem comes from "poiein" meaning to make, to construct, to arrange. Poetry began as storytelling and ballad with rhythm and rhyme added to help the storyteller and singer perform from memory. 

Bobbins spun in gradient order

Spinning is over 20,000 years old. It began with a stick or bone used as a spindle. Using a wheel to increase spinning efficiency must have felt like magic to the spinning spinsters. No wonder the spinning wheel is part of folk tales. The magic of spinning stretches from goddesses of mythology through my great grandmothers to contemporary spinners around the world. A hand spinner, as a knitter, or poet, literally holds time and place in her hands. 

Three shades of color in each skein

While spinning was often drudgery, music and poetry meant escape and entertainment. My foremothers spun out of necessity. I spin for the tactile meditative experience as well as the poetry and yarn. The rhythm of the wheel becomes my own meter. Good poems lead the listener/reader to new ideas. Fibers spun by hand create a new yarn, a new story. Both "dwell in possibility."**

900 yards of possibility

* Some thoughts in this sentence come from an "On Being" conversation between Ada Limón and Krista Tippett. 

**Emily Dickinson wrote the poem #466, I Dwell in Possibility"   In this poem, Dickinson cleverly renames poetry Possibility. When I read the poem, I rather enjoy spinning other ideas from possibility.   

For more musings about poetry see Bonny's post, A Gathering of Poetry.