DAY 32 - POETRY - it touches the heart, because that's from whence it comes

This evening I had the great treat to attend a lecture of Robert Pinsky, U.S. Poet Laureate (1997-2000). And better yet, I ran into friend (and poetry expert), Julie Nichols there – because certain things, like poetry and ice cream, are always better when shared with a friend. Pinsky is a distinguished gentleman, a talented teacher, and a gifted poet – and I sat mesmerized as he shared his own works, along with those of a few of his (and also my) favorite poets: Whitman, Frost, Yeats.

   At the end of the evening, copies of one of his books, “Singing School” were handed out – so we waited in line to meet this delightful and charming man, and have our copies autographed. Then I rushed home to devour the book – as I am a bit of a Poetry-phile.

   There is something hypnotic about poetry – the meter and rhyme, the playful words, the vibrant images conjured up. And for the next few hours, I read other favorites, including: Poe, Dickinson, Plath. More than just reading their poems, each word a brushstroke painting a vivid scene in my mind – taking me on a journey.

   The purpose of Pinsky’s “Singing School” is to learn to read and write poetry. And I love the first sentence of his book: There are no rules. This is how I have always felt about poetry. Although I am a huge Shakespeare fanatic, in my youth I also fell in love with Free Verse and those reckless poets that leave iambic pentameter on the shelf and just let the words dance and trickle across the page – like the beloved Shel Silverstein.

   And then I did something I haven’t done in a very long time – I pulled out my own poetry. I wrote some poems in high school, and quite a few in college – but then life came along and there never seemed to be time. When I was first married, I worked two jobs just to make ends meet – and between working 60-70 hours each week, being a newlywed (stepkids and all), well something had to give.

   Oh, once in a while a poem wouldn’t be ignored or contained, and I would carve out a few minutes to get it onto paper – and over the years those papers have mostly made their way into my Writing Notebook, to be saved for a later day. And these past couple of years, especially these past few months, the poems have come more easily. Maybe because I have a bit more quiet time in the evenings. Maybe because I have more emotion that just cannot be squalshed. Maybe because certain things are just best expressed in poetic form.

            

   So today I decided to share one of my early poems with you:

The words come slowly

One

          by

One

                    onto a blank page

and with a little bit of

Heart

straight

from

my

Soul

          I call it

                              P O E T R Y .

-- Gena Roe