Poem-Sonder-We are All the Same-Response to Brenda Arledge’s Word Prompt Week 35-Sonder.

I love poetry. I am a voracious reader and am passionate about writing. I have recently started my foray into poetry.

Word Prompts Help Creativity Week 35~"Sonder"

When Brenda gave us the word prompt Sonder this week, I was really fascinated by the word. I had never heard of this word. Brenda had already given the definition of this word while giving us the work prompt. She also shared videos describing the meaning of the word.

We come across so many people in our life every day. We meet people while commuting to work, on the bus, train, or while going on a walk, or taking a stroll in a park in the evenings, or on a visit to the mall or theatre. We do not give much thought to them as they are strangers to us. We just go about our work ignoring the passersby.

But when we pause for a moment to think about the random people we meet, we realize that they are just like us. Their life is also as complicated and as difficult as ours. This is the moment of Sonder. Thanks, Brenda, for giving us this interesting word prompt and thanks to Kyler for suggesting this word to Brenda.

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway

— The dictionary of obscure sorrows by John Koenig

Summary of The Poem

For a writer sonder can be very valuable. It can make him more empathetic and help to weave vivid stories around people. So, a writer should embrace sonder and not shun it. Writers will be able to connect with people better and get to understand their emotions and will be able to write about their true experiences in life. Writers can relate to the people, the choices they made, the mistakes and the lessons learned from them. People try to live by constantly thinking about the good times they had. It helps them to overcome the difficulties they face in life. The writer can relook at emotions and reinterpret them and find new meaning in People and their experiences. Sonder gives writers a new impetus to write stories of people more like themselves. My Poem is about the sonder, writers benefit from embracing

Poem-Sonder-We are All the Same-Response to Brenda Arledge’s Word Prompt Week 35-Sonder.

I often sit by my window

when I do my writing

Looking out on the street below

I see people hurriedly walking

Some going to work some simply jogging.

Most of the time I think of them

As people passing by everyday

Going about their work with purpose

For they have a family to maintain.

But one day, I had an epiphany

I looked at the people on the street

And realized that they are all like me

Consumed by their work, and relationships.

Constantly thinking about the choices,

they made and the lessons they learned

They are all burdened by their mistakes

And failures, their worries and their regrets.

In the end we’ll all become stories

— Margaret Atwood

They live by the things that make them happy

At that moment I realized that we are all the same

We are at the mercy of the human condition frame

This realization is called sonder by name.

As writers we need to tap into this sonder

We need to feel it, and not dismiss it

And let it wash over us because this sonder

Helps us become more empathetic

And also become more sympathetic.

Feeling sonder makes it easier

For a writer to embrace the

Worldview of others, even when

It is different from his own opinion.

Writing about the emotions and experiences

of strangers like they were his own

believing their life was as complex

as he always thought was his alone.

Sonder- An Acrostic Poem

Stop and think of the people around you

Otherwise of no interest to you

New feeling of Sonder makes you to care

Draws you into their stories and makes you

Empathize with them and understand better

Realizing their lives are as complex as yours

© 2021 VIDYA D SAGAR