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Green like the grass
A ribbon of snake slithers
Through thickets of meadow
Hunting for field mice
jzr
This month is National Poetry Month. When I moved here to Charlottesville, back in 1985, I had no idea what was in store for me. If you had told me I’d be writing and submitting my poetry to various journals in the near future I’d have said that you are the looniest person on earth.
As a young person, my history with poetry reading and therefore writing, was nonexistent. In high school when it came to reading poetry I was always told how to interpret a poet’s words. I was shy and even though I continually wanted to raise my hand and say, “No. I think what Mr. Frost means … ,” I kept it to myself. There was no discussion. It was simply, “This is what Mr. Frost said, this is what it means, and you’d better get it right on your midterm exam.” As a result I was bored with and hated anything in verse with a passion. For me it was, “Eek! Poetry? Run for the hills!” I felt stupid and lost all interest in it for the time being.
So, what made me sign-up for an evening poetry writing class in the University of Virginia’s Continuing Education Program? I was much older of course, in my early 40’s, married to a theatre man, and a fabulous teacher. I came to know that life experience beyond high school and college for that matter, is worth more than any graduate degree. Besides life’s usual day to day adventures, we often talked about writing and spent a goodly amount of time in New York going to shows. I came away loving it all, including Shakespeare, another one of my early aversions. My first encounter with a poet was way back in my late twenties when I met Pulitzer Prize winner, Galway Kinnell, at a small dinner party in rural Vermont. I’d obviously moved up in the world, leaving my ignorant early adulthood behind, able to talk about poetry, plays, novels, and works of non-fiction.
And I have always loved to read. I love words and how writers use them, gifting their readers with images and understandings of worlds beyond what they actually see in front of them. For me writing is very much akin to painting. Instead of using pigments, writers use words to build scenes in which all of senses react, as they might to peaceful landscapes or cityscapes, captured on canvas.
Already immersed in photography and painting I wanted to expand the way I express myself and what I believe to be important. Instead of using abstraction as I was in my visual work, words were more concrete. They brought me closer than ever to creating a mood or a scene that spoke to all parts of the brain, bringing the reader closer to what I am trying to get across.
I wrote the following in 1991, describing the difficulty I sometimes feel when I have the need to write.
Words
Push
Through
Spreading
Fissures
I force
Them back
Repress
Meaning
Sounds
Dismiss them
As inadequate
Already said
Yet they must
Begin somewhere
As if there is
A place to start
Here on this line
Reaching those
Who would hear
What I have to says
jzr
Words…powerful symbols. I can so relate to your post and enjoyed reading of your journey from there to here. I lived in Charlottesville in 1986-1988. Wonder if our paths crossed… Another time and another place … love your poems.
Thanks, Dorothy. We well might have crossed paths during your time here. But it feels like centuries ago! I’m happy you enjoyed my poems.
Such terrible poetry teachers you had, Joan. I’m so glad you survived with your own creative spirit not only alive but well.
It has taken me a while to overcome my anxiety about poetry also. Perhaps one has to have a certain amount of life experience before knowing how to approach the words so mysteriously painted on the page?
I just learned that a poet I met at a retreat in 2010, Diane Suess, was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry for her new book Four-Legged Girl. I think you would like her and her work.
Yes, Shirley, there are terrible teachers out there. In college I finally found a few gems and that began my change of heart about poetry and history as well. I do think life experience is helpful when approaching poetry in the beginning.
I will look for your friend, Diane’s book. That is wonderful!
The best poets I know carry their lyrical gifts into prose works; e. g. Donald Hall in Unpacking the Boxes, and the Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon. I love how you use words artistically here, painting pictures as with pigments. Snake = green ribbon! Who knew?
I’m with Shirley, shame on those poetry teachers.
Thanks, Marian. I think many who “teach” poetry haven’t had great teachers themselves. What happens then is an unending cycle of those who pass on their anxiety and ignorance about it.
Joan, I admire people who can write poems. I think it takes a lot of skill to express an idea succinctly and within the required framework. If one can do that, it can only help the creative process when it comes to prose. The way I way I see it, poetry and prose are just different ways to play with words. Thanks for sharing your journey of his you found your own creative well, despite that stifling high school teacher.
You are so right, Kathy, prose and poetry are simply different means of using words to tell a story and describe the world around us. Thank goodness teachers don’t always make a difference in how one turns out. It’s life and being open that helps people who love to express themselves with words.
Thanks for sharing your poetry journey, Joan. I like the way Kathy says that “poetry and prose are just different ways to play with words.”
I understand this perfectly, since I’m suddenly thinking in poetry all the time when I was never that interested in poetry before. My mom is an artist, and my older daughter is, too. My mom said the other day that it’s just a different form of expression (she said it’s in our genes)–that she does it with paint, and I do it with words. 🙂
Merril, I also believe that our genes makes a huge difference in how we spend our lives and the ways in which we express ourselves. But it can easily become of no consequence if we aren’t allowed to be in an environment that encourages us to express ourselves in the way we choose.
Joan – I could just “spit tacks!” (as my mother would say) when I learn about teachers like the poetry teacher you had in high school.
I love the two poems of yours that you shared. Clearly, that teacher was merely FERTILIZER that in the long run helped you to blossom into the writer you are today.
Laurie, I love that expression, “spit tacks.” I know the feeling well and now I know a way to express it properly. I’m glad you enjoyed the poems!
I was the same as you Joan, losing my early love of poetry when I had to analyse its meaning in high school. I never lost my love of reading though.
I love words now. I play with them, sort them & find meaning in them that I hadn’t seen before. I was surprised when I began to write poetry about ten years ago, in my later fifties.
I love your poem. It has a succinctness that carries many depths.
Thanks for your visit Linda. Like you, I never lost my love for reading either and am so grateful to be able to sit down and pen a poem or a personal essay. Here’s to words, poetry, and self expression!