Why Poems?
thoughts from a writer who sometimes writes poem-ish things
Issue 13/Thanks so much for reading Good and Beautiful Things.
A World Divided
In my seventh grade English class we did a project with poems. For the assignment, we had to find published poems as well as add in poems that we had written ourselves. So, I found poems and I wrote poems. And then I printed them out and put them all in one of those clear presentation folders with the slide-on plastic thing to hold the papers together. In seventh grade I had not yet divided the world between poets and non-poets. If a teacher told me to write a poem, I wrote a poem.
In eleventh grade, I took a creative writing class. This time when we were told to write a poem I went to my friend, who I knew to be a poet, and asked if I could use one of her poems for my assignment. She gave me one of her poems and I read it to the class. After I was done, the class asked me questions about the meaning of the poem and I stammered my way through the answers until I finally confessed that the poem was not really mine. The world was now divided between poets and non-poets.
A decade and half later, as my father lay dying, poem-shaped words fell out of my fingers onto the keyboard in my lap. I didn’t ask the words to choose that shape, the decision was made for me. This continued during the last few weeks of his life and in the first few months afterward, grief showed up as a poem. Was I a poet now? I wondered.
Eventually, I showed the poem-ish work to a poet friend and after reading them, she asked me some questions. I could tell by the questions that the answer to my own question was this: I was not a poet. (Or not a good one, at least.) It took me a long time after that to realize that it didn’t matter whether the poems were good, it mattered that writing them had helped my heart.
Why Poems?
A few weeks ago another friend showed me a collection of poetry she’d written over the summer. One day the poems started arriving in her journal and one day a few months later the poems stopped. Since then they’ve trickled in occasionally but not like the marathon of poems that happened last summer. Those poems explore core turning points of her life, they wrestle with pain, and acknowledge places of healing. I couldn’t help but wonder why, like the writing I did around the end of my father’s life, my friend’s words showed up as poems instead of her normal prose style.
When I was a theater student someone explained to me the concept behind why a character breaks out into song in the middle of a musical. The character experiences such deep emotion at that moment that she has no other choice than to sing, the friend said. At the time I wasn’t a big fan of musicals (straight theater was my thing) so this explanation helped me accept the sudden burst of song on stage. Reading my friend’s poems and thinking back to the poem-ish days beside my Dad’s bed, I saw that this idea of theater translated to writing as well. For the person putting words on paper, sometimes verse is the only option for expressing the bare bones truth of deep emotion.
Poetry as Prayer
This weekend I attended a Poetry and Prayer Half Day retreat with Irish Poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama. Pádraig’s voice and poetry selections on the Poetry Unbound podcast have been a companion to me through the turbulent years of the pandemic and my years with chronic pain. It was fascinating to find myself in the same room with that voice, in a lodge outside of Memphis, Tennessee.
How long have you been writing poetry, the woman beside me asked. Oh, I’m a writer and sometimes I write poem-ish things but I wouldn’t call myself a poet, I said.
During the retreat, Pádraig taught us a liturgical form of expression called the Collect. Those in liturgical churches might already be familiar with this form but I wasn’t. In the context of our workshop, we mainly talked about the Collect as a form of prayer that expresses one single desire. Pádraig emphasized honesty, he suggested God could handle whatever we had to say. I thought of Job and David and their honest moments with God in the Bible.
Writing to a specific form of poetry is great for a poem-ish writing person like myself. The writer is mostly filling in blanks. Here is a Collect-inspired poem that I wrote yesterday:
Holder of my Heart
Holder of my heart,
you who has broken it
and mended it
again
and
again.
Help me to see you
in the midst of
every new threat,
and in the old ones
that linger on.
Help me to feel your hand
on my heart,
still.
P.S. Please don’t squeeze too tight.
Amen
One of the prompts was to write about a time right before a big change happened in our lives. We were told to write a Collect, addressing that younger version of ourselves. I immediately thought of the time right before our second child was born. She arrived into the world with her two major arteries attached backwards and four days later underwent open heart surgery to reconnect the arteries correctly.
This happened twenty years ago but I still remember the hours and hours of waiting to find out if she’d survived the surgery. I remember calling my mother who lived ten hours away and telling her to come right away instead the next week like we’d originally planned, because we didn’t know what might happen. The experience left its imprint. So I wrote something to that younger version of me, and although it did not end up following the Collect form, it did tell the truth. And it did help me to say it.
Before and After
Dear young heart,
girl playing a wife,
all hell is about to break loose.
You will survive this,
and so will your child.
But neither of your hearts
will ever be the same
again.
Everyone Can Write A Poem (Or Read One)
To be clear, I no longer think the world is divided into poets and non-poets, anymore than I think the world is divided into creative people and non-creative people. I bet you have a poem inside of you, right now.
As a reader, I’ve gone years without intentionally reading poetry but when I do read it, I remember that poetry can name feelings or experiences that we aren’t able to name for ourselves. Poetry really has nothing to do with stale high school classrooms or dissecting themes and metaphors. Poetry should be read aloud, whenever possible. It should be given breath and voice. If you are not a reader of poems, consider reading a poem this week. Even better, consider reading a poem daily with your prayer time for the next month. (Coincidentally, April is National Poetry Month).
I’ll link a few poems that have resonated with me, in the Favorite Finds section below. And I would love to hear from you about a poem that has meant something to you, or maybe a poem of your own.
From the Sketchbook
It’s been a busy week, but I managed a few more birds.
Favorite Finds
Articles
Can Poetry Heal a Broken World, A great article with Poet Laureate, Ada Limón.
Mary Oliver Saved My Life, An exploration of poetry as therapy.
Poems
Kate Bear on husbands, bodies, and what kids say.
The Lanyard. It’s important to hear Billy Collins read his work, once you do, you can read his other poems on your own and still hear his distinct delivery.
Praying by Mary Oliver
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee
Aimee ... I love you. What a beautiful post!! Your poems are so beautiful and speak very powerfully to me. I just ordered Mary Oliver's book ... thank you.