Lesr’s Reviews > Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry > Status Update

“Mistake no. I: They presume the "I" of the poem is the poet, and that the poem is about an experience that the poet actually had. This may or may not be true. The truth is, in poetry there is no real truth.
There is only the poem.”


YESSSSSSS.

"No, these stories are not true, but they are the truth of what I'm working on now. The truth of what I want to capture and hold in my hands just long enough to bring it to life and then let it go. Truth? Lies? Or a little of both, woven together to become even more true. Perhaps that's my true job as a writer... not to tell truth, but to create it.”
-Shanna Germain
THIS.

"I think that one role of the poet is to present the reader/listener with his or her view of what the world could be, in contrast with how it is."
—Christopher Luna

“I have an opportunity to be surprised, moved, and changed by the endless unexpected variables that emerge in familiar routines. I believe that this is what poetry demands of us: a willingness to savor mystery instead of stampeding toward certainty. When we pay careful attention to the potential of the extraordinary, its blossoms will burst through our ordinary, everyday lives.”

Fear of the blank page can keep many a poet from sitting down, rolling up her sleeves, and getting started. It's quite common for poets to get stuck wondering what they might have to say that's worthy of a poem. You may not know how many ideas you already have flowing through u and how much raw material of emotion, story, and language are waiting at the tip of your pen or fingertips until u start writing them down.

Poetry gives us an opportunity to experience our lives twice. First, as it happens, in real time. And second, in heart time. The poem gives us a kind of cosmic canvas to savor a moment, make sense of it, put a little frame around it, and digest our experience more completely.