All ‘Art’ is a three stage conversation, but specifically for Poetry
First there are two private conversations. One between the poet or writer and the page as the process unfolds with ideas and words and drafting and refining.
And then with the reader as the words deliver the poet’s creation raising images, memories and emotions from the reader’s experience merging with the dimensions and insights contained, but not constrained by the poem..
Lastly are the external conversations as the poem is sometimes read aloud and talked about.
Being aware of these three conversations I often write leaving spaces within my choices for the reader’s part of the conversation.
Occasional conversations with those who have read a poem of mine reveal something new, different that I had not either intended or discovered myself and that is a joy, for the poem is therefore given a newness, a life beyond my purview.
Writing is usually a private affair and requires focus and concentration, a form of mindfulness and as such is particularly therapeutic particularly if the primary audience is oneself.
The seeding of a poem can be almost anything and often it is as much a voyage of discovery as the words are laid out. Often the poem is organic, growing in unexpected ways.
There is plenty of material on line and elsewhere on poetic forms and a good deal has an academic background or becomes niche. I find these constraints are not for me though I do write a type of Haiku.
My poetry journey started late and by accident and has ebbed and flowed ever since. I wrote some simple childhood memories in a column fashion and I realised they had something of a poem about them.
We had poetry at school and to be honest, it was dire and didn’t connect. Poems like Wordsworth’s Christabel and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge.
Rote learning was something I never mastered.
I believe everyone has the capacity to not just enjoy poetry in some form or other but given the circumstances, to enjoy writing.
©JohnDaniels
Waking the Baby 