Poetry in Our Lives

One of the most frequent comments I get about my writing, relates to my poetry.  The comment is usually something along the lines of “I wish I could write poetry like that” and my typical answer is “you can…it is not hard.”  It is merely a frame of mind.  Typically when I set out to write poetry, I will take a feeling or emotion and translate it into words.  For example, if I were to feel like writing about depression related to love loss I might start out with something that we all have experience with and word it in such a way to invoke that feeling or sympathy of that emotion.  A good start for a love loss poem might be…stranded on the shore of pain, I am awash with longing, bathing my bleeding heart, in a puddle of self pity…see not that hard…you get from the first line that one feels abandoned or stranded…the second line represents the feeling of wanting to be where one was before…the third line represents the emotional damage done…and the last line represents ones current emotional state…nothing there that every person has not felt at one time or another in their lives.  Another way I like to begin poetry is with a mental picture of some place or scene that has meaning to me…for this example I might think to use a field of flowers with a tree standing in the middle somewhere…oh and a happy rock not far from the tree…now that you have the image planted in your mind…let’s write…a soft breeze carries the fragrance of summer, wrapping it around the guardian and his minion, standing tall and waving in the breeze, casting a shadow as the day wanes…see not that hard…the writing puts one in a field of flowers with a soft breeze carrying the perfume to the guardian (the tree) and his minion (the rock)…though the tree and rock are not mentioned specifically…they are implied and would be further expanded upon in subsequent lines.  The important thing is to create something from your heart.  Poetry is fairly simple to write and the cool thing is that the more you write, the better you get...so go make some poetry in your life…