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Why Poetry Matters 13 & 14

By Glynn Young 1 Comment

We’re down to the final two contributions on “Why Poetry Matters” that were submitted for the poetry and wine giveaway last month. The randomly chosen commenter received a copy of L.L. Barkat’s InsideOut: Poems, and the winner of the 100-word statements on what poetry matters received a copy of the poems and a bottle of Sineann wine.

From Bonnie at Being Transformed:

Why Poetry Matters

I teach literature to a high school tutorial and also have done workshops at the Childlight USA Conference on Poetry.

I think about Billy Collins’ saying in Introduction to Poetry : to hold it to the light, drop a mouse into it and watch him probe his way out.

OR Wendell Berry on How to be a Poet: Make a place to sit down. Be quiet. There are only sacred places…

And John Keats with “Truth is beauty and beauty is truth” from “Ode to a Grecian Urn.”

Luci Shaw from “Breath for the Bones:” Because beauty matters.

L.L.Barkat’s poetry book does that.

And from Nancy at 75 and Sunny:

Why Poetry Matters

Rooted in our shared human experience
In this created space, articulated into being
By holy Words,
Are the empty arms of childless Mothers,
Falling buildings, rising suns,
Hummingbirds and hammered nails,
Corpses lying under rubble,
Dreams realized
and dashed,
Sunsets and mine fields and eyelashes,
Despair, elation , hope, cowardice.
And when human emotions stretch within these fleshy skins
And surge past the walls that we, in our fragility, cobbled together to enclose them,
The animal which escapes its cage is Poetry.

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Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
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Comments

  1. nAncY says

    February 28, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    well shared words

    Reply

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