The Power of Poetry

A poem, what is it?

Creating the perfect title for your poem

Words on paper, hidden and still? Destructive violence or constructive joy? A lark or a nightingale, poetry of living. The words I write and the words I say — Are who I am and how you see me. You can’t unwrite what you’ve written, so be careful with your grammar! What is that called again: my spirit? My heart? Defy whatever biology says!

Each word is life. Each word is a thought. Each word was a thing that was made, and each had to be made in its time. Each word is a part, each word a whole that is itself. Each word is a melody in its own right, with all its resonances. Each word is the light of many lights — without it, darkness would be our lot. Each word is born to live and grow and die, but — that’s not for you to decide; it’s for the poem to do and say. Hopefully, it will last. Other poems have lived longer than my poems have lived. Other poems have been torn at, broken up, and ironed out of shape; others have been made for children and the dead.

I write about these things because the thing I write is what I feel. I write about these things because you need to know them if you’re to fully realize me as you are to me. I write about these things in the hope that I can be seen and understood by my reader as much as I am seen and understood by myself.