I was originally going to call this post “versing” thinking I was making up a one-word synonym for writing poetry. Then I learned that it had become a slang word for competition and since that’s not what I meant at all, I dug up alternatives. I could have gone with Poetizing or Versifying, but both of them sound clunky and a bit old-fashioned. Not the vibe I was going for.

When I was six, I wrote my first poem. An ode of sorts to my pets.

Fish, fish,

I like fish.

They go swish

In their dish

My oh my

I like my fish.

I imagine you can guess the title.

Before I wrote my first story, or book report, or school assignment, I wrote a poem. Penning verse is hard-wired within me.

The first thing I ever had officially published was also a poem. When I was a junior in high school, my creative writing teacher was compiling a text book and offered a school-wide competition for inclusion in his book. Since the school had 5,000 plus students, that was no small feat! Somehow, at the time, I considered it a given that I would get one of the five coveted spots. Sure enough, he opted to include my poem Silence is Golden. I don’t have a copy of it because that was a dark season of my life and when I came to faith, I burned it along with many other writings. The title, I remember as being sarcastic, even angry. But the point is that penning verse wove through every phase of my life.

One thing I really like about writing poetry is the telescoping effect. You can take a single thought and broaden it. It’s like looking at the concept through a microscope. Some of my margin poems reflect on a single verse or even a word within the verse. Or you can take great quantities of information, turn the telescope around, pan out from it and find the overarching theme and then poetize that. Several of the margin poems looked for the focus of an entire chapter of Scripture, or, for the shorter ones, an entire book of the Bible.

Poetry is flexible and the ultimate chameleon of words.

Hebrew poetry is primarily parallelism. I’m sure God did that because it’s poetry based on comparison and contrast of ideas rather than sound. The ideas translate well into any language and the images still reverberate: joy, sorrow, anger, beauty, and much more. But every culture has its own style of poetry and people keep playing with the words of verse and creating new forms. The permutations and combinations are limitless. Do you want a rhyme scheme to dominate? Perhaps this idea feels more like rhythm and you want a staccato of consonants driving the message home. Or it’s something you’re finding difficult to express and need the tight constraint of a sonnet or other form to take those thoughts captive.

Whatever style you use, from blank verse to ballad, concrete poem to sestina, God has given the imagination and the words to allow the messages to come to life. Personally, I don’t think we’ve yet exhausted the limits of poetry. I truly believe others will invent new forms, methods, and styles of poetry.

Most of the time, while writing the margin poems, I used free verse. My only goal was to respond prayerfully to what I read. Sometimes, I added images. Sometimes, I linked the verse to life today. A couple did use rhyme. Many used internal alliteration to emphasize a point. But it wasn’t like that was my aim. I repeat: my only goal when writing the margin poems was to respond prayerfully to what I read.

Within the next month, the final volume of margin poems will be uploaded to Amazon.

It has been an interesting journey reacting to Scripture by penning verses. The process has made me realize something, a Scripture that I memorized back in my Awana leader days. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man [or woman!] of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NKJV)

Thank you, God, for the verses. And for helping me grow closer to you by penning them.