So your challenge is to either use repetition as a rhetorical device (repetition of a word or phrase or line) in constructing your poem; or to write a poem that centers around a motto, your own or perhaps passed down in your family or in your culture, showing how it’s been used or misused. Or, if you’re ambitious, see if you can do a combination of the two (as in “Deor’s Lament” & Angelou’s “Still I Rise”).
***
It’s all good
That’s what they always say
Everything may not be with us
No one says anything except
It’s all good.
–
It’s all good
Mantra from a busy woman
Discarding thoughts of inadequacy
Tries to think
It’s all good.
–
It’s all good
Covers a number of feelings
Hidden thoughts lurk in your mind
Outwardly, though
It’s all good.
***
Poetics: Of Mantras, Repetita Juvant
The Bag Lady 
Perhaps if we keep repeating ‘it’s all good’ we will realise that it is!
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I hear this all the time. No one wants to have an in-depth conversation.
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It seems like everybody is just hurrying all the time they’re too busy
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Great take, Cheryl. That is an often-used mantra even when things are not all that good.
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So true, Cheryl – how tempting it is to let people have the whole kit and caboodle – they’d probably never dare ask again…
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reminds me of “it’s fine!” … sure, sure. 😉
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So much here. It’s a shield, for sure. Like when you someone says “how are you?” The expected answer is I’m fine or i’m good.
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Said when you don’t want to tell what is really bothers you
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It’s like when you pass co-workers in the hall and say, How’s it going? Nobody wants to say, so they say good.
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Yup
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A good phrase
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I hear you. Its all good, can hide a lot of emotions. Good one!
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Our family uses it often
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Really like the utter simplicity, how you sent the verse around that one phrase…that one all-too powerful phrase often used.
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Thanks for reading
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You nailed it, Cheryl. As you so deftly show, we hide behind such mantras to disguise and hide the disquieting.
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Thank you for commenting!
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My pleasure!
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