What? and Why? The Two Biggest Questions
Thanks to The Last Brahmin for posing two challenging questions.
(A) What does poetry mean to you?
and
(B) Why do you write poetry?
I found I couldn't really separate the answers. What poetry means to me ties so closely into why I write it. Getting from A to B was a long journey for me, so my answer will wander a bit, too.
My parents were readers. My mother read to me before I could talk, so I was reading on my own as soon as I possibly could. I was also grateful that she continued to read to me after I could read – always something a bit more advanced that she wanted to share like Louisa May Alcott's novels. My mother grew up in the Great Depression generation, when children were required to memorize a lot of poetry (cheap entertainment). She used to recite long humorous poems from memory and taught me scansion of meter long before we touched on that in school, which we barely did.
In other words, literature was in my blood. Poetry is a subset of that. For most of my life, it was a small subset. At 17 I decided I wanted to be a writer, but didn't envision myself as a poet. After about a dozen poetry workshops, I got the wake up call. I've only been publishing poems for the last 10 years and simultaneously reading it by the truckload. You can't write what you don't read.
Mama's scansion lessons paid off. Being able to write rhymed, metered verse paid my living for many years as a greeting card writer. My employer paid for those poetry workshops as a way to reward and improve my writing. It worked, and I certainly feel rewarded! (I learned from Jane Hirshfield, Ed Hirsch, Ted Kooser, and Bob Hicok, just to name a few).
For me, writing poetry is my creative expression, my pleasure, and my vocation. It suits me because my thoughts and interests flutter about. I can write about my childhood in one poem, Monet in the next, followed by vampires. I couldn't face months of writing a long manuscript that required more cohesion. I love the brevity and concision of poetry, both as a writer and reader.
I was interested in art before writing and see poetry as painting with words.
As you can see, there's no stopping me when I launch into chatty writing like this, but I write short poems and put a lot of attention into weeding them.
I might even say that novels and plays are my outer world and sense of adventure. Poetry is my inner sanctum, where I discover and share more about who I am and what it means to be human.
(A) What does poetry mean to you?
and
(B) Why do you write poetry?
I found I couldn't really separate the answers. What poetry means to me ties so closely into why I write it. Getting from A to B was a long journey for me, so my answer will wander a bit, too.
My parents were readers. My mother read to me before I could talk, so I was reading on my own as soon as I possibly could. I was also grateful that she continued to read to me after I could read – always something a bit more advanced that she wanted to share like Louisa May Alcott's novels. My mother grew up in the Great Depression generation, when children were required to memorize a lot of poetry (cheap entertainment). She used to recite long humorous poems from memory and taught me scansion of meter long before we touched on that in school, which we barely did.
In other words, literature was in my blood. Poetry is a subset of that. For most of my life, it was a small subset. At 17 I decided I wanted to be a writer, but didn't envision myself as a poet. After about a dozen poetry workshops, I got the wake up call. I've only been publishing poems for the last 10 years and simultaneously reading it by the truckload. You can't write what you don't read.
Mama's scansion lessons paid off. Being able to write rhymed, metered verse paid my living for many years as a greeting card writer. My employer paid for those poetry workshops as a way to reward and improve my writing. It worked, and I certainly feel rewarded! (I learned from Jane Hirshfield, Ed Hirsch, Ted Kooser, and Bob Hicok, just to name a few).
For me, writing poetry is my creative expression, my pleasure, and my vocation. It suits me because my thoughts and interests flutter about. I can write about my childhood in one poem, Monet in the next, followed by vampires. I couldn't face months of writing a long manuscript that required more cohesion. I love the brevity and concision of poetry, both as a writer and reader.
I was interested in art before writing and see poetry as painting with words.
As you can see, there's no stopping me when I launch into chatty writing like this, but I write short poems and put a lot of attention into weeding them.
I might even say that novels and plays are my outer world and sense of adventure. Poetry is my inner sanctum, where I discover and share more about who I am and what it means to be human.
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Thank you, Brahmin. I wouldn't put too much faith in those Goodreads numbers. I read about 100 books a year but hesitate to rate books that I read 10, 20, or 40 years ago unless I'm sure they had a lasting impact. So my own count is likely less than 10% of the total.
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Thanks for answering my ow questions.
We have alto in common. I too start reading at an early age for in the small town I came from, we were the first to be real serious readers. Of course I got started on comic (Kit Carson and Robin Hood) books then started borrowing books (Charles Dickens) from our school library. When kids were borrowing one book I was trying to get 4-5. I became an avid reader and never stopped so I chuckle when Goodread folks flaunt their numbers of around 100+ in their adult lifetime for mine would be over 10,000 and that is a conservative figure for I am only calculating to the age 50. I am far older now and still reading 2-3 books at the same time.
I was writing doggerels and rhymes at the age of 12 and so far has published 5 books of poetry with 3 in the works and 3 novels soon to be published. I grew up in a community where reciting John Masefield, H W. Longfellow or Robers Frost was the order of the day. I remember my mother at 75 were reciting H Wadsworth Longfellow:
The lives of great men reach and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight
But they while their companions slept
Were toiling upwards through the night
From this same gentleman I’ve learned:
Simplicity is the glory of expression.
I came from a generation of readers and proud to say I was the first writer produced from that generation. I owe my success to my teachers, friends and relatives and the net. To me poets are like artists in quest of the ideal, with big hearts and wider canvas to hone their craft. I am at peace when writing poetry as when I am fishing. Each poem is like watching a child growing up. As it emerges, there is satisfaction in expressing myself and I feel at home seeing it takes shape.
TheLastBrahmin