POETRY FROM THE PAST

Earlier this month I posted that I was afraid of poetry.  I have been thinking about that post and the reasons for my thinking.  I actually love poetry.  I love the way it sounds.  I love to teach students and adults about poetry.  I love to share tidbits of verse in workshops and have the words springboard us into deeper thought.    It is my favorite mode of writing.  A good poem moves the soul.  Its sparse use of words breaks down mood and purpose to essence.  I read some poets and I think, “if only I could craft such a presence with my words—use my words to create a truth in such a unique and honest way.” 

When I posted earlier this month about these thoughts, a friend of many years with whom I have recently reconnected wrote to me and sent me a poem that I wrote in 1982.  At the time that I wrote this poem, I was in Berkeley, California, attending the Bay Area Writing Project.  This time ignited my love for poetry, my understanding of writing and changed forever my instruction of students.  Many posts could be written about this transformational time, but today, I am going to post and celebrate the poet from within—in me.  In all of us.

These words ignite in me a passion that I had as a young woman to be a poet.  These words help me to honor that woman as someone who has let poetry live in my world.  Poetry has lived in me through reflection, insight, action and lived truth.  Thank you to my friend, who was touched by my words when they were written over 25 years ago and saved them to touch me this month in the wake of my expressed  fear. 

Poetry can be scary. But when one has the courage to face that fear, poetry becomes joyful and transformational.  Poetry becomes a journey.  It is through poetry that we connect with our essence—our soul.  We are all poets.   Poetry, in its most essential form, is beauty in expression.   Each of us is unique and beautiful.  That beauty—our living poetry can be spoken in many ways—through song and verse, through art and photography, through movement, through acts of justice and kindness.  The poet in each of us strives to express the beauty from within that is unique to each of us—our truth—our essence.