My Experience with Poetry

If a Poet
A Poem Emerges Over Time
Reading Out Loud
Today I Waffle
My Poetry Journal
I Inaugurate This Journal
My Mind is a Melange of Ideas
You May Ask
The Current and Future of Poetry
On Posthumous Fame
Viva la Poesia!

If a poet paints a picture
With words upon a page
And a reader understands it
Though from a different age
Then the poet is like the painter
Sending messages through the ages
And quite like paint on canvas
Her words upon the pages

A poem emerges over time
I can not hurry it along
Until I find the proper rhyme
The iamb and meter of the song

Sometimes the raw words flow quite well
But oft I need to leave them be
To close the pages or the file
Revisit later when it suits me

Reading what I've written will
Expose the errs in the new piece
So I can then expunge and fill
And end the work for wide release

You will want to read A Poem Emerges Over Time - The Article

Journal, from the French jour meaning day
Requires at least a few words penned per day
This poetry book on the other hand
Does not a daily post demand

I inaugurate this journal given
To me with love
So that I might capture the verses
That I am thinking of
And put them on the paper
Along with other rhyme
To form a grand compendium
That over years of time
May inspire readers to ask
About this humble poet
Where & how & who she is
And not because they owe it
But, that the words are good
With a meter true to form
Relating tales and themes of everyday
And (perhaps), a twitch above the norm

What is it like to read my words out loud
To stand at a podium in front of a crowd
In hopes that my words aren't met with derision
That I speak with clarity, without indecision
Some genteel applause at the end is nice
Encouragement comes at such a fair price

Poetry, like prose, is not usually written exactly the way it ends up. There may be a number of reasons why an author ends up replacing a line of a verse with another line. The original line may not sound right because:

You are mixing grammatical elements or verb tenses
You are mixing language elements - like substituting thee for you at the last minute
You are rewriting a poem for a man that was written for a woman
Your inside joke won't be appreciated by the reader
One line is better suited to a different occasion or mood than another
And a host of other reasons

For example, here is a verse from a poem I wrote about Royalty

Nobility was just by matter of birth
And no matter that a man could think
If he weren't royal little chance of worth
Oh the unfairness if no blood link

But the verse was originally (pre-publication) written

Nobility was just by matter of birth
And no matter that a man could think
If he weren't royal little chance of worth
Now we would right away say: that stinks

I wrote it to amuse myself with modern thought and convention but on rereading and a comment from my daughter, replaced it with "Oh the unfairness ...."

Here's another example from the end of a sonnet about love

Yes, blessed am I to have my choice made
Our lives to live by soothing serenade

But this ending is funnier

Yes, blessed am I to have my choice made
Now, how in heck will this wedding be paid

Today I waffle between writing and reading
A new book lays waiting looking neglected
But my brain is full of ideas to be heeding
This time, pencil on blank paper is selected

My mind is a melange of ideas
I need to focus, keep things clear
And give voice to 1 true thought
Through poetry 'twill be wrought

You may ask why I prefer rhymes
Since beat poets and others free verse
Well, my thoughts come thus most times
So, for me, other forms may turn out worse

Yet, I have the license to write as I please
For example, to mix French among my words
Or to swap singular for plural like 'tree' for 'trees'
And have fun as I write of fountains, love and birds

I've finished a new lens
About where poetry will be
Will the old poets have friends
Or forgotten will they be

If someone thinks my work is good
I'd like to be alive to know it
A comment or a compliment would
Console a not-dead poet

Is poetry a dying art
To be learnt in grade school

Is poetry a dying form
For greeting card designers

Nay I say, Viva la poesia!

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