Poetry

A short, simple looking word. My dictionary defines it as  metrical writing, the production of a poet, and writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through its meaning, sound and rhythm. Additional meanings: a quality that stirs the imagination or gives a sense of heightened and more meaningful existence; and a quality of spontaneity and grace.

I’m familiar with poetry of course – took it in high school and university English, have read it, had it read to me. My writing group is a mixture of poets and prose writers. I’ve written the odd poem in the past, but have never felt that I could call myself a poet, as I do call myself a writer. A couple of months ago my writing group held a workshop on poetry. At the beginning of the session our poet leader/instructor asked, “What does poetry mean to you?”

To some extent the definitions above can also apply to good prose. I think of Michael Ondaatje, who was a poet first and writes (at his best) incredibly poetic prose.

It seems to me that poets access their brains differently or get into a different kind of mind space when they write, than prose writers. My reason for thinking this is not that I’ve asked any of them (and our workshop leader didn’t talk in terms of this), but that the result, the good poetry I’ve read, is so different from prose. It’s not just the use of language and imagery, but also the line breaks, spacing, and punctuation (or lack of it), as well as the sheer imagination of images  used, which all combine to create that heightened emotional response. When my prose writing is going well, it feels like an amazing meditation. I wonder if anyone has ever studied the brain (i.e. done brain imaging) while a poet is creating? What would the brain look like when this is happening, and is it different than when prose is being created?

I’ve heard poets talk about playing with language and certainly some poems do this – they can be a lot of fun. I thought perhaps this was a good clue to for me to begin with, in my quest to try to write more interesting poetry. And there I go – interesting is probably the wrong word. Really good poetry hits me over the head or makes me feel as if the top of my head is going to come off or makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

So I’ve started keeping a poetry notebook to play around with language, letting ideas just come and letting one word build on another. Also trying to put disparate images together.

What  poetry means to me:

an image taking root

in my heart growing to expand

my soul so it opens to the moon the door

where anything can enter