First Poetry

answer to a challenge to explain my first love of poetry

mother was controlling

scheduling, forbidding, 

disapproving, punishing

reflecting her strict religious

conservative, isolated, 

paranoiac upbringing

 

ed was dreaming, 

reading, drawing, 

writing, studying

withdrawn, antisocial

 

books were a wonderful escape

obsessions and fantasies took root

very little TV, books and tablets 

for Christmas presents

 

poetry had rules

cadence, meter, rhyme

“onward marched the 10,000”

I read much was little impressed

 

until I found the rules broken.

a tattered, naughty copy of Walt Whitman’s

Leaves of Grass always nearby

hidden under my bed and

memorizing meant 

taking it with me

 

“I sing the body electric!”

“Urge and urge and urge, 

Always the procreant urge of the world. 

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, 

always substance and increase, always sex,...”

and

“I sing the body electric.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards,

The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up, and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water.

The bending forward and backward of rowers in row boats -- the horseman in his saddle,

Girls, mothers, house-keepers in all their performances....”

 

I found expression 

for my depression 

in Shakespeare;

“Life is but a walking shadow,

a poor player that struts and 

frets his hour upon the stage

and then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot

full of sound and fury

signifying nothing.”

 

But I was really hooked when I met

e.e. cummings

who broke all rules

poetry as structure with 

deeper meaning in every syllable

words and thoughts twisted 

and placed in obscure ways

it was best read aloud and

I cherished those rare times 

when I was alone and could speak it

 

“as joe gould says in

his terrifyingly hu
man man
ner the only reason every wo
man

should

go to college is so
that she never can(kno
wledge is po
wer)say o

if i

'd
OH
n
lygawntueco

llege”

 

and

“anybody lived in a pretty how town 

with up so floating many bells down” 

and

“if I should sleep with a lady called death

get another man with firmer lips        `

to take your new mouth in his teeth

(hips pumping pleasure into hips).”

 

these creative men with their pens

held my sanity with their fantasy

teaching me -- reaching

into a future with possibilities

beyond my attic prison

preparing me for my SP2 family

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

Words within words, complex and layered. A number of heroes and the reasons for development. Taking in responses and through them developing your own. That is what its all about. Excellent. Ken

[Emily B]

Aw, this is awesome. And for those moments when I couldn't be at home with my books, I had dozens of poems memorized, just so I could take them with me. It was a lovely trip through an anthology. Whitman is a special favorite.