Src: Jessica Furtney Unsplash

A few weeks ago, in the early morning before I woke up too much, a phrase kept repeating itself in my head — time tumbles ... time tumbles. The words coaxed me to listen and follow them back into the edges around my sleep — time tumbles as it stretches. I kept my eyes closed, holding onto the words not wanting to break the spell.

Two minutes. I had roughly two minutes to pause in this liminal space between sleep and waking up to soak up whatever my subconscious’ night shift was sharing before the day shift came on duty. I let the phrase repeat itself so I could remember it, having no idea where the words came from or what they meant — but it felt like the start of a poem I wanted to spend time with — time tumbles as it stretches from place to place.

Where does poetry come from? How can we learn to pause and follow the invitation to visit unexpected places?

where does poetry come from?

trailer with Katie Prince

During this month’s thought echoes podcast in honor of National Poetry Month here in the US, I interviewed poet Katie Prince. I asked her about the origin of her poems in Tell This to the Universe, especially about the people she’d lost and how she wrote about them on the page. She said her poems came to her in a variety of ways: an idea, a phrase, a thought concept, or an active image.

The magic emerged when she followed them until something interesting happened. “At some point, the language will take over. The poem will go somewhere that I didn't expect it to.”

As Katie reflected back on both the people she lost and her earlier self when she wrote these poems, she shared one aspect of poetry’s alchemy. “Your thoughts of people in the world, or your representation of them can somehow bring a ghost form of them back for a moment. The ghost version of my past self is there. I’m not that different now, but she was certainly a raw, exposed nerve at the time. Maybe that's the magic of it. You're bringing back a person from nothingness.”

how can we learn to pause and follow the invitation to unexpected places?

There’s a hidden power in pausing, according to Jeffrey Davis M.A. in “How the Art and Science of Pausing Boosts Your Well-Being." He explains how slowing down is about more than resting. We have an opportunity to create space for our mental well-being too:

Listen to Our Inner Signals: Our bodies know when something’s not right; pay attention for when to take a break

Foster Creativity: Our brains get a chance to stretch and make unexpected connections if we give them breaks from trying to always be in control

Reconnect with Priorities: Taking pauses helps us recalibrate with what truly matters in our lives whether family, purposeful work, or personal growth

As Davis suggests, we can use the simple gesture of taking a moment in our busy schedules to absorb what’s within and around us. We can try adding micro-pauses (10-15 minutes to step away and let our minds wander). Or, another idea is through poetry.

Poetry slows us down. Opens us up. Some poems resonate. Some slip by like walking past a grocery aisle with too many options. We can’t choose, so we keep going. From my perspective, it doesn’t matter which poetry you read. Think of it as an appetizer. You like some and not others, but keep tasting. Where to start? Poetry.org lets you explore by occasion, theme, form, or customized search.

There are so many different types of poetry. I’m drawn to free-verse — the fragmented nature of jumping from association to association (more the way my mind works). Poetry acts as an emotional conductor of sorts, guiding us along for the experience.

One of my favorite books on writing poetry is poemcrazy by Susan Wooldridge. For Susan, poetry helps us make sense of the world in ways different than prose. Poetry allows the peppering of images and leaves gaps. She says, “Poetry is in a different class of writing. It’s almost a mystical way of going within ourselves and making discoveries about who we really are.” If you are lucky enough to spend any time with Susan, you quickly get sucked into the vortex of her love of language. There’s a thrill of playing with words and where they take you.

Something happens in the writing of poetry, an opening up, a willingness to be witness to what you are experiencing. An opportunity to let our subconscious communicate emotions through its language of images, then we can translate those images to words on the page.

If you’ve never written poetry — as Katie says, “The value isn't whether it's good or not, it’s how the writing has changed you, opened something up new for you, or given you a different perspective.”

As poet/philosopher David Whyte says, “Poetry can stir the memory of words that reside in our bodies in different ways.” He re-iterates “poetry’s invitation of bringing what we feel inside into a conversation with the outside world.” Poetry bears witness.

At the end of the podcast, I asked Katie for her words of wisdom for people who don't experience poetry on a regular basis.

“There’s nothing like poetry when you’re in the depths of something. There’s no better method, I think, for distilling pure experience. All a poem does is pay attention.”

— Katie Prince

***

Holding loosely to the time tumbles phrase, I gingerly woke up enough to get out of bed. I reached for my journal and followed the phrase — not from a specific image, but from a sense of movement, of time passing.

As I continue to work on my memoir on our dance with chance when moving a 100-year-old mansion and what I learned about myself and my marriage, my subconscious offered me encouragement. As did Erica Bauermeister, author of House Lessons, a memoir about moving a home in Port Townsend, Washington. She shared how her book took 15 years to finish and about the perspective gained by waiting that long.

time tumbles

as it streetches from place to place

between memories that watch each other

hugging closer

then letting go

waiting to tumble and stretch again

When was a time poetry spoke to you? Can you create some white space for poetry to invite you to unexpected places?

WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR COMMENTS.

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