AT THE HEART OF POETRY
As a college student just beginning to write poems, I heard Nina Cassian, a Romanian poet granted political asylum in the US, state her belief that poets should write the world's history books. Her statement shocked me. I was uncertain what she meant then, but as I've thought about it over the years, read and written more poetry, I've come to understand.
Poems don't necessarily record the precise details of a person, event or place. Instead, they isolate a moment and shine a flashlight into its heart. In this way, poetry exposes emotion before it reaches the intellect, and moves the reader to discover the experience in new, perhaps more poignant ways.
For me, the process begins with the need to give voice to something internal, something I feel, but can't fully recover. Poems grow out of that moment of feeling and capture an energy that must transform itself into words. As the triggering moment transpires, I often know that I will write a poem about it. Sometimes the poem comes immediately. Other times it takes months or even years to find me. But in those moments of discovery, when I learn things I didn't know I knew-poetry is magic.
I suspect most poems are triggered by the poet's personal history and beliefs. And while they are filled with inventions of the imagination, poems tell a truth the family albums and history books often omit. Poetry resonates. In its afterglow, the reader is forced to refocus and clarify her feelings.
As part of our rituals of birth, death, memory and healing, poetry is the language of hope. At times I read poetry with the hope it will inspire me to write better metaphors in my fiction. But there are other times when I come to poetry on my knees, hopeless, when I can find no other source of solace.
A few years back, both my oldest and youngest brothers died within three months of each other. One was fifty-four, the other thirty-eight. When nothing comforted me, I read poetry. I read until I found what I needed in Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese. Her images gave me a fresh vision and conveyed hope far more profoundly than any statement of sympathy or encouragement had. Read it for yourself and you'll see what I mean.
We all have times of despair. But the world goes on. Our personal and community histories are written. And if we are still alive, like the wild geese, we have a voice in them.
Nina Cassian wasn't suggesting the facts of history be omitted. Only that we find a way to enter them on a deeper emotional level. We all know the gruesome fact that six million people were killed in the Holocaust. But only Speilberg's poetic impulses could shine a flashlight into the heart of that terrible time, illuminating one little girl in a bright, red coat.
And that, is why I love and write poetry.
THE CHRISTMAS RITUAL
FIRST BLOOMING
MOON FLOWERS
THE BRAIN PUZZLE
HOMECOMING
Poems don't necessarily record the precise details of a person, event or place. Instead, they isolate a moment and shine a flashlight into its heart. In this way, poetry exposes emotion before it reaches the intellect, and moves the reader to discover the experience in new, perhaps more poignant ways.
For me, the process begins with the need to give voice to something internal, something I feel, but can't fully recover. Poems grow out of that moment of feeling and capture an energy that must transform itself into words. As the triggering moment transpires, I often know that I will write a poem about it. Sometimes the poem comes immediately. Other times it takes months or even years to find me. But in those moments of discovery, when I learn things I didn't know I knew-poetry is magic.
I suspect most poems are triggered by the poet's personal history and beliefs. And while they are filled with inventions of the imagination, poems tell a truth the family albums and history books often omit. Poetry resonates. In its afterglow, the reader is forced to refocus and clarify her feelings.
As part of our rituals of birth, death, memory and healing, poetry is the language of hope. At times I read poetry with the hope it will inspire me to write better metaphors in my fiction. But there are other times when I come to poetry on my knees, hopeless, when I can find no other source of solace.
A few years back, both my oldest and youngest brothers died within three months of each other. One was fifty-four, the other thirty-eight. When nothing comforted me, I read poetry. I read until I found what I needed in Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese. Her images gave me a fresh vision and conveyed hope far more profoundly than any statement of sympathy or encouragement had. Read it for yourself and you'll see what I mean.
We all have times of despair. But the world goes on. Our personal and community histories are written. And if we are still alive, like the wild geese, we have a voice in them.
Nina Cassian wasn't suggesting the facts of history be omitted. Only that we find a way to enter them on a deeper emotional level. We all know the gruesome fact that six million people were killed in the Holocaust. But only Speilberg's poetic impulses could shine a flashlight into the heart of that terrible time, illuminating one little girl in a bright, red coat.
And that, is why I love and write poetry.
THE CHRISTMAS RITUAL
FIRST BLOOMING
MOON FLOWERS
THE BRAIN PUZZLE
HOMECOMING