In Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, professor and poet Marilyn McEntyre notes where many poems come from – in the midst of doing something else, “usually something quite unpoetic – making dinner, looking for a parking place or keys or glasses. They come as gifts – little phrases or images that flutter into awareness and distract it from its linear progress toward some more pedestrian objective.”
In my own experience, I’ve had poetic images and ideas for poems, and sometimes whole poems themselves, arrive unbidden in the middle of a meeting at work, driving to the airport, waiting for a movie or concert to begin, changing a diaper, heading back roses in the garden, and changing a light bulb. Some call it the poetry of the daily.
I like to think of it as Poetry for Life.
It’s why I make sure I have a pen and something to write on wherever I go. Whatever I am doing. It’s how I discovered poetry in the workplace and wrote a small book about it.
We can be more strategic. In “The Capitalistic Quandary of Poetry” at Huffington Post Books, L.L. Barkat (Tweetspeak Poetry’s editor) suggests five practical ways to increase access to poetry, to recognize that poetry is actually happening all around us, and that we can apply it to virtually every situation in life. One of those ways is to “bring it home.”
For the second year in a row, if you live in the Seattle area, you can do precisely that. And you don’t need a lecture hall or auditorium.
The Seattle Arts and Lecture Poetry Series, with Crab Creek Review, allows you in effect to take a poet home with you – at least for an evening or day with friends. In its second year, the program sponsors a poet coming to your book group or gathering of friends to read poetry and talk about writing and publishing.
I took a whole flock of poets to work with me in July. Can you tell who they are?
The poets are all Seattle-based, so no travel expenses are involved. While they may not have the celebrity of a Billy Collins, remember that at one time Billy Collins didn’t have any celebrity, either. Nor did Maya Angelou. Or Seamus Heaney.
Fine poetry doesn’t need celebrity to be written, heard, experienced, and cherished. And fine poetry can be found in life, those daily things we do and experience that collectively add up to our existence.
We like this idea of poetry for life so much that we will be publishing articles about in the upcoming weeks and months. Teaching poetry like it’s alive. Bringing poetry home. Transporting it (like all those books by British poets I carted home from London in my suitcase, worried the whole flight back that someone in luggage might have lifted them) (loving poetry can often make you think ridiculous things). Paint poetry in the public square, including the virtual public square. And taking poetry to work, or finding it there. (I took a bunch of poets to work with me for Take Your Poet to Work Day in July and posted the photo on Facebook. People at work made comments, but I figured that was their problem.)
So join with us in finding poetry for life. Leave a comment. Submit a story that fits those five categories. Tell us your story of poetry for life.
All you have to do is look around you.
Photo by josemanuelerre, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest and A Light Shining, and Poetry at Work.
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Sandra Heska King says
Gray sky and bare branches,
empty feeders and thirsty birds.
The cat needs her claws clipped, and
I have a headache.
But there is toast
slathered with Sissy’s strawberry jam.
There is tea
and there is poetry.
Sandra Heska King says
I forgot the honey… we need an edit button. 🙂
Marcy says
And we need an edit button. So profound and true Sandra.
Glynn says
And the Chardonnay.
Sandra Heska King says
😀 😀
Martha Orlando says
It is, for me, in doing the most mundane of tasks when inspiration hits. Like you, Glynn, my pen and notebook are never far from me! Wonderful post!
Glynn says
Martha – thanks for the comment!
Kelly Chripczuk says
Two questions, Glynn. Where do you keep your pen and paper? Being of longish hair, I routinely have a pen or three tucked up in my hair – I don’t know what I’d do without it!
Also, how do you submit a story at tweetspeak? I have to confess that the whole site has me bamboozled, or maybe it’s just post holiday exhaustion, but I can’t seem to figure it out.
Sandra Heska King says
Hi, Kelly. Have you explored the Mischief Cafe? And the new December “menu” will be posted there soon.
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/mischief-cafe/
Sandra Heska King says
Actually, there’s all kind of interesting stuff if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. 🙂
L. L. Barkat says
Oh, such a great question, Kelly. We function in a “community” way and don’t work with a query structure.
It’s time we made a page to explain this (so, here it is 🙂 )…
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/submissions/
Marcy says
Thanks L.L. for posting the tweetspeakpoetry.com/submissions to read. That is so good to know and I just learned something new today. Marcy
Jody Lee Collins says
Kelly, we had a Mischief Cafe at my house….here’s my post about the evening, if it’s any help
http://www.wordfacets.blogspot.com/2014/11/poetry-101-mischief-cafe.html
Jody Lee Collins says
Laura–(thanks to Kelly’s question) the Submissions page is a brilliant addition.
Glynn, I clicked on the SAL link and couldn’t find what you mentioned about taking poets ‘home.’ I look at the Sunday Arts section each week to see what/who they’ve got lined up…..maybe I missed this?
In other news, I found an entire volume of Sara Teasdale poems at the Goodwill yesterday. I am thrilled.
So happy to be a small part of this poetry for life movement.
L. L. Barkat says
Thanks, Jody 🙂
It’s the other link, about taking poets home. Here you go:
http://www.agodon.com/a-poet-at-your-table.html
Jody Lee Collins says
got it! thanks.
Marcy says
It’s in the air we breathe.
The cry of my son’s first born
I was allowed to keep.
Drove an hour each day just to hold
That hope which came in the form of
A grandson.
My heart broken in two, ripped from
My chest, crushed under his breath.
Dealing with bitter feelings and rage.
Forgiveness and a backbone you cannot bend.
Then a disease that never seems to end.
Escape to writing poems healed my heart,
Feel in love with writing each day,
Consumed by words they took me away.
From pain to happiness,
I know where my heart lies.
It’s in the words, on pieces of paper,
Written down the rest of my life.
Glynn says
The poetry of the every day — and the every day contains its own beauty. Marcy – thank you!
Jody Lee Collins says
Marcy, this is beautiful!
I know what you mean about ‘hope which came in the form of a grandson.’
God gives the best gifts….and the weight of the words in the writing it down… seems to anchor us, yes?
Marcy says
Thank you Glynn and Jody, your words understand. Life can be difficult but God stands firm as long as I put Him first. He’s done a great job keeping me together.
SimplyDarlene says
It is alive! One day
for home education we
createdd poetry
babble haikus made of hard
Scrabble words tiled
on the kitchen table –
It’s lunchtime! I shoveled
squares, lidded letters
atop their checkered board,
I knee-nudged, leaned and
pressed closed the door. Alas
I heard a ruckus! A racous sort
of popcorn noise – it’s only my
stomach hungry for leftover pie.
Days slip, fall into another
Scrabble scattered table. Flip
flip flip flip ’em over – letters up, bottoms
down. Half to me, half to son – we
lay down words like “lamplighter” “zoology”
“pigfa-” as I reach the “t” a lonely “b” bites
my lingering finger. I tsk-tsk
-tsk the naughty tile. Yes, yes, I
know you’re alive but
you must tuck your teeth and give us
only a square
wooden inky sorta smile.
Jody Lee Collins says
Darlene, I was raised on Scrabble. Those tiles ARE alive….indeed! great lines, “you must tuck your teeth and give us only a square wooden inky sorta smile.”
You are a good teacher.