Poetry in the Word

Not really a poem, not really a story. Prose about why I love poetry, let's say.

Ahem. *stands in front of class, trembling ruled paper in hand (it's not my HANDS that are trembling, see, it's the paper)*

*clears throat*

"Why I love poetry, by Jules

To wit:

I love poetry because it’s everything, or can be.

 

I love that it can be ONE word—like, nuance, that word is poetry, to me—or thousands, like the Illiad.

 

It’s revealing, reflective, reflecting; inane, insane, silly, funny, touching, poignant, profound, ripping, tearing, searing, piercing.

 

It can make me laugh, cry, sigh; giggle and wiggle, squirm and burn; think, sink, rise and arise.

 

I love poetry because it reveals so much of the writer, or not. I love that you see completely different aspects of a person with each poem they reveal.

 

I love that it leaves a legacy of a person. Oh Captain, my Captain.

 

I love it because it’s very often a puzzle, and oft-times you have to read the whole thing, then each word, then each line, then take it apart then put it together; I love that it’s open to interpretation and any two people could get completely different things from a truly well-crafted poem. I love that the SAME person can get something new from each reading.

 

I love poetry because She walks in beauty like the night. Because I sing the body electric. I love it because Out of the ash I rise with my red hair, And eat men like air.

 

I love poetry because of Def Poetry Jam; people blow my mind; their experiences and their reactions to things, their circumstances and their coping mechanisms.

 

I love it raw. I love it polished. I love it elegant, down and dirty, the passion and the restraint.

 

I love when it’s beautiful and maybe even more when it’s dark and dire and savage.

 

I love the images I get, the feelings, the flow of it all, or even the choppiness.

 

I love the mythology of it, the life, the breath and breadth, the depth, the death. The simplicity, the complexity, AHHHHHH the everything.

 

I love that it’s a voice; a screaming or whispering or singing or chanting or whining or vengeful or loving voice; a voice of a person whether in pain or joy, whether yearning or wistful, loving or hating, loved or reviled. I love that it’s that voice either applied to self or to others, that it can be compassionate and bring attention to other’s plights, that it can be completely internal and selfish and sharing of a soul.

 

I love that the voice of the writer is only the beginning; the interpretation of the reader—their experience, their state of mind, their level of involvement—all colors how they read, what they see, where they go with the words before them.

 

I love that any and everyone can do it, and the often do without realizing. I love that it’s just THERE, to uplift, to teach, to show, to make you think and feel.

 

I love it because it can take you on a journey, to places, times, to insides and outsides, to souls and brains.

 

I love poetry because it’s painting with words; it can be just as visual and searing as a painting, just as comforting and transcendent as beautiful music, just as tactile and striking as sculpture.

 

I love it because even people who don’t like or “get” it love music, and music is nothing but poetry set to a tune.

 

I LOVE that when it’s bad it’s freaking hilarious (sorry Jewel, heehee) and when it’s good it’s mo-freaking SUBLIME.

 

I love the music of it, the rhythm, the rhyme, the non-rhyming, the bravery, the shyness, the self-fulness, the everything of it.

 

I love that you can really sink into it, and rise above it, and travel along with it.

 

I love poetry because it’s words, and words are one of my “things.”

 

I love poetry because it’s something about which one can “wax poetic” while saying nothing at all.

I love it because it's everything.
 

I do love it and I don’t have the words to fully express everything I love about it. I love that after all these many words I've not even scratched the surface of how I feel about it.

 

So, yeah, there’s that.

 

*smiles*

Reviews

[JohnL]

Thank you for your recent review of my Spanish poem. I'm so glad you felt my poem rather than just read it. I have read with delight your 'Poetry in the Word'. It delights me, sets out what I feel and more. It is going in my library for fuller perusal. Such enthusiasm refreshes in my mind the 'Words' of Pablo Neruda which I'll paste in:

The following is a passage from the memoirs of Pablo Neruda, translated from the original Spanish. Neruda was a Chilean, a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Chilean Ambassador in Paris at the time of the Allende regime and a poet of rare excellence. He wrote on a wide spectrum of subject matter, his poems on love, travel, injustice and the Spanish Civil War being exceptional.
'THE WORD:
. . . You can say anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend. . I bow to them . . . I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down . . . I love words so much . . . The unexpected ones . . . The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop . . . Vowels I love . . . They glitter like coloured stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew . . . I run after certain words . . . They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem . . . I catch them in mid-flight as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives . . . And then I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them, I let them go . . . I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves . . . Everything exists in the word . . . An idea goes through a complete change because one word shifted its place, or because another settled down like a spoiled little thing inside a phrase that was not expecting her but obeys her . . . They have shadow, transparence, weight, feathers, hair and everything they gathered from so much rolling down the river, from so much wandering from country to country, from being roots so long . . . They are very ancient and very new . . . They live in the bier, hidden away, and in the budding flower . . . What a great language* I have, it's a fine language we inherited from the fierce conquistadors . . . They strode over the giant cordilleras, over the rugged Americas, hunting for potatoes, sausages, beans, black tobacco, gold, corn, fried eggs, with a voracious appetite not found in the world since then . . . They swallowed up everything, religions, pyramids, tribes, idolatries just like the ones they brought along in their huge sacks . . . Wherever they went, they razed the land . . . But words fell like pebbles out of the boots of the barbarians, out of their beards, their helmets, their horseshoes, luminous words that were left glittering here . . . our language. We came up losers . . . we came up winners . . . they carried off the gold and left us the gold . . . they carried everything off and left us everything . . . They left us the words.

Pablo Neruda, 'Memoirs'

* Spanish, of course but doesn't it apply to us all?'



I know you'll appreciate it - it is parallel with your thinking and so vibrant. have not a lot to say about your piece, save that I got so much from it and that it was good to hear someone who understands the difference between rise and arise, and who qotes Whitman's 'I sing the body electric.'

Later today, I'll have a look at some more of your work, and 'humbly' review it,
Kind regards, and good to meet you,
John

[KCthelastboyscout]

Everything I loved about poetry you basically explained in your story. unique, funny and interesting to read. I see you first wrote this in 2008. it has aged very well

[emmajoy]

That's brilliant, truly is.. you hold so many of those phrases, thoughts, feelings close to your heart.. writer or not.. you feel them!

'I do love it and I don’t have the words to fully express everything I love about it. I love that.. .. .. .. So, yeah, there’s that.'

[Jules]

Thank you so much!

[emmajoy]

You're truly welcome, will come read some more when i can, promise.

I believe the gent below was on my friend's list some years ago.. An English gentleman - and very much the latter, Wrote about travels abroad and good dining too.. Yes?

[Jules]

I am not sure, actually. I haven't been to this site in years, unfortunately, and I don't remember :(

[emmajoy]

Okay, think i recall who he is, will ask a couple of others who friended him.. he was THE true gentleman in the Cafe. Thanks anyway, is good to see you back - hopefully back.

[PianoandPage]

this is probably one of the better tributes to poetry i've read. i love that in your prose you use great alliteration, rhyme, rythmn, and killer descriptors...

i love poetry i think the way you love poetry.

although i disagree that ANYONE can write poetry i do agree that at some point everybody TRIES to. lol.

this entry makes me smile as well. thanks for sharing!

[Gandré]

ohooo ! and u left the space between the lines empty.

for there, i wanna place my dreams.