What is Poetry?

(What is poetry to you...? In this prose poem, I indicated the craft, what wordsmiths poets are, as well as what the essence is to me, but realize that I made poetry sound perhaps rather sweet when there is also grunge, slam, anger, pain. Yet again, as a long-time meditator, I find writing poetry is like the deepest meditation, so the anger and pain are like storms on the ocean, a froth of waves, while the ocean itself is full with steady presence.)



We speak in tongues of poetry, rare spun silk woven into our raw edges.

And echoes, cadence, melody of image, for whom detail, hidden or overt, reveals breadths of vision.

Finesse, complex filigree patterns, considered interlacings of feelings in the verbal clusters of stanzas.

A poem of many voices, strands, cross-currents, opposing winds, and I prefer this to a single slant on, say, Rumi-esque love, or American violence.

Just as the ocean forms each spilling wave wetting our feet while the sand dissolves beneath us, poems should be carefully crafted with total emotional disclosure.

The surfaces, smooth, but buckled.

A self-consciousness of style, a sensitivity, the art of writing fine poetry.

Poetry emerges from our secret words to join the ocean of language through which we communicate. Poems play with grammars. The speaking voice is a tessitura, offered, sung in all its ranges.

Poetry is not only about your feelings; it is about the possibilities of language.

A poet, a jeweller of words, creating a cloisonne of images, a vessel of many colours and opacities like a turning shadow lamp.

If it is not alive, it isn't real.

Not to forget the dissolution of us.

The best poetry is the writing appearing and disappearing at the edge, on the precipices, of the known world.

                              

Sketch of a Sketcher from a Poetry Salon

Sketch of a Sketcher, from my Poetry Salon in March, of Jennifer Hosein, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, graphite, India and acrylic inks, Moleskine folio Sketchbook A4.

While I had thought to do wild, expressionist colours, to lose the form somewhat, my muse urged me in the direction of delicate restraint instead. Over many hours I created the colours stroke by stroke with a dip pen. Once I started working on this drawing, I knew I wished to keep the original sketch intact, that there is a softness that could not be rendered in ink. Jen's artwork is full of bright passionate colours, and she is a bold and talented writer, and yet, her gentleness, she is a kind, warm, compassionate person.

                              

Little Sketch of a Sketcher

Sketch of a Sketcher, 21cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", 2012, graphite, Moleskine folio Sketchbook A4.

For the first time in the 5 years I have lived in my apartment, I made dinner for some friends. Really I am a recluse. I cooked curry, my usual fare. I had a tiny poetry salon/birthday celebration on Sunday night... 4 of us only, and while each of us read fairly lengthy pieces, the others drew. Thanks Brandon Pitts, Iddie Fourka and Jennifer Hosein for standing by me.

 My little sketch of Jen, not so good - but sharing anyhow. I will paint this one, and it will look very different when finished I hope!

(It was nice, but I don't think I will peep out of my shell too often. Family, though, come for gatherings at least once a month or more often. Two children in their 20s, with their partners, often here. A busy little spot. Guess at heart I'm a family person. :))