"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye." So said H. Jackson Brown, Jr, the author of Life's Little Instruction Book. This couldn't be more true of writing poetry. I can attest to that.
Ah, but then there is the task of putting into words what it is that the heart sees, and I for one am often surprised by the words that flow from the tip of my pen. "Wow! Is that what I've been feeling?"
Then again, I know many poetry enthusiasts, whose hearts resonate deeply with the poems that they read, but who sadly lament that they are unable to articulate their own feelings and thoughts into poetry.
So, I wrote a ten-part series a while back, titled A Key To Writing in Rhyme, which was an attempt to encourage and equip these poetry lovers so that they might consider giving poetry composition a try.
In any event, once that which is in my heart begins to coalesce into
words and, at some point, lay there on the page where I can see them, it's all that I can do to follow along and hone them into poetry.
I get that this might smack of a do it yourself therapy session, which it sort of is, but it is also so much more. The insights, ideas, and associations that emerge during this process are not just about me.
I realize this every time someone reads my work and says ,"I feel that, too!" And sometimes, their perceptions go well beyond the words I've written, revealing an even broader scope of its meaning.
To me, poetry is communal. It is something inclusively shared between the poem, the poet, and the reader, very like a shared heartbeat, where we partake of that which is invisible to the eye.
And, it's a lot less expensive than therapy.
Image: somewhere on tumblr.com
Ah, but then there is the task of putting into words what it is that the heart sees, and I for one am often surprised by the words that flow from the tip of my pen. "Wow! Is that what I've been feeling?"
Then again, I know many poetry enthusiasts, whose hearts resonate deeply with the poems that they read, but who sadly lament that they are unable to articulate their own feelings and thoughts into poetry.
So, I wrote a ten-part series a while back, titled A Key To Writing in Rhyme, which was an attempt to encourage and equip these poetry lovers so that they might consider giving poetry composition a try.
In any event, once that which is in my heart begins to coalesce into
words and, at some point, lay there on the page where I can see them, it's all that I can do to follow along and hone them into poetry.
I get that this might smack of a do it yourself therapy session, which it sort of is, but it is also so much more. The insights, ideas, and associations that emerge during this process are not just about me.
I realize this every time someone reads my work and says ,"I feel that, too!" And sometimes, their perceptions go well beyond the words I've written, revealing an even broader scope of its meaning.
To me, poetry is communal. It is something inclusively shared between the poem, the poet, and the reader, very like a shared heartbeat, where we partake of that which is invisible to the eye.
And, it's a lot less expensive than therapy.
Image: somewhere on tumblr.com
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