PONDERING POETRY
I came home from a brunch social with friends the other day, to a lovely heartfelt landline phone message from a long time friend, expressing her heartfelt appreciation of a collection of poetry I put together recently. She was the first person to receive a copy and, up to now, the only person. I listened to her message twice, once standing up and the next sitting down. My heart was definitely smiling and eyes watery. Of all people in my life whom I felt would truly read, understand and react honestly, she did not disappoint.
I have always loved creating poems to express feelings, observations and predictions. Sometimes my thoughts are abstract, my ideas peculiar, my dreams over the top but, whatever the reason, my mind loves to select one idea, create a theme, purpose, rhythm and, most often, some kind of rhyme. Not all poems need rhythm or rhyme, but all of them have reason.
Poetry has always been a difficult subject for school teachers to teach and the ones I had tended to keep that Unit to the end of the school year, when time was running out and excitement of school ending was at the forefront of students’ minds. Understandably, today, it is tough to find people of my generation who know how to approach poetry, understand it or appreciate it.
So, a few months ago, I took a big dusty binder off my bookshelf. It was full of plastic sheets in which I had stored hundreds of poems. I reread them and decided it was time to do something more with them; but, not before taking one additional step back — energizing awareness about the power of poetry.
Although the poetry curriculum may have been an after thought for teachers, and dull and boring, complicated and cerebrally stressful for students, 😥, — and difficult for either to place its value in everyday life — we were very young back then and really not ready to approach it with an open mind. We had too many other things on our minds during puberty and relationship building.
As a young adult, I secretly took a liking to things that were generally not popular: French/English bilingualism, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, politics, refinishing wood furniture, liverworst, sardines, Margaret Atwood and creative writing.
Everyone who knows me knows Canadian author and poet, Margaret Atwood, is a leader in Canadian literature, and her prose and poetry thrive on the unusual in terms of style and content. Many in my circles cast her work aside as too weird and too odd. I label that human reaction as being neurologically stressed, and walking away from a challenge. A cop-out. After all, look at her pedigree now!
Finally in the 21st century, people of all walks of life, all ages, all creeds, are taking note and realizing Margaret is a voice worth noting. More brains are opening up to having challenging cognitive experiences and enjoying thinking beyond simple and obvious, branching out into the more complex and realizing there is more to poetry than just words on paper that sometimes rhyme, sometimes have rhythm, but always have interesting and intriguing messages to ponder and discuss.
I know poetry will never be a best seller, but just the idea of getting more people to give themselves a challenging cerebral exercise, now and then, away from gadgets, devices and media, just seems like good self-help medicine, a good diversion, a good breathe in and breathe out exercise, and a great medium of expression, interpretation and genius!
