Poetry

It's National Poetry Month. As a writer, my first form was the poem. I started at age eleven, scribbling screeds on the vagaries of life behind a locked bedroom door. I began clumsily, in self-absorbed fashion, unschooled in the art of poetry, apart from Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on A Snowy Evening" or Joyce Kilmer's "Trees." Hardly a Dylan Thomas or Rimbaud, my early efforts are laughably embarrassing when I look at them now. My youngest son composed better stuff at the same age. But the act of writing itself, expounding on themes, revealing myself on the page, was liberating. It primed the pump for stories and essays which followed.

Love of poetry, the reading or reciting of poems, is in short supply these days. Aside from some independent bookstore events or guest authors appearing at universities, it's rare that such lyrical magic is given voice. Thank goodness for Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac on National Public Radio, which features a daily poem, and the popularity of the contemporary, "accessible" former U. S. poet laureate Billy Collins, whose books actually sell. There's the relatively new venue for sounding stanzas, poetry slams. For the uninitiated, a slam is a way of performing a poem in a more exaggerated fashion than a typical coffeehouse reading. People gyrate, scream and often cause something of a commotion in the process of airing their verses.

But ask the average reader what he/she is poring over these days and chances are you'll never hear "poetry" in response. Unless you're at a writers workshop, seminar or conference. Even then the answer will most likely be fiction. So I invite my readers to take their next free moment and pen one for the fun of it. Or the ache, agitation, joy, ecstasy, injustice, grief or grievance. You're bound to come up with something memorable to you, if not to your spouse, children or best friend. The pen is not only mightier than the sword, it is the Jedi Force, Frodo's ring and Alice's looking-glass all rolled into one. Go to a notebook, journal or poetry blog and leave your mark. No matter how trite it seems, how insignificant the subject matter, you'll feel better afterwards. And chances are no one will ever read it but you.