I began writing poetry in 2011 after reading a beautiful book called "Galileo's Daughter" by Dava Sobel. The book was about the life of Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun who maintained a special relationship with her father, Galileo. The story so moved me that I wrote my first poem as a result, “Galileo’s Moons.” Not sure where it came from but it popped in my head and I wrote it down. The poem stayed hidden in my computer for about two years until I finally published it on my blog. I shared it with a few friends on Facebook and didn’t think much of it. End of story.
Not exactly.
Not exactly.
Fast forward to April 2016. While on a trip down to Miami
with my two daughters, I became obsessed with the line: “I soar on wings of
silver light.” (A potential new marketing slogan for American Airlines perhaps?) By
the time we landed I had written the first four lines and thought they were so
good they deserved an entire poem. During the next seven days I sat up nights
trying to work it into a poem, mostly as an intellectual exercise. I would
dutifully sketch it out on a piece of scrap paper until it started to take
life. It was not something I could file away under “mental aberrations” or “what
I did on my vacation.” For me it was serious and I couldn’t put it down until I
had finished it.
This time I published it on my Facebook page and was
surprised when it caught the attention of a famous Danish writer, who quipped, “Hey,
you wrote that? Great!” Over the next two years I wrote many more poems. Usually
I would find a nice photo on Facebook, like a bird or a flower, and I would
think of a first line. Then I would spend the next several days working out the
meters and rhymes and the general theme, until I created a poem that conveyed a complete
thought or idea. The interesting thing is, the more I wrote poetry, the better
I got at it. I also got a lot faster. Whereas it used to take me weeks to write
a complete poem, after a couple of years I could write one in an hour or two,
even on complex subjects. I also learned a lot of valuable lessons along the
way. Here are five:
1) People still love poetry.
Though we live in the digital age, there is still a
thriving market for poetry. People still love poetry. This is something that
stunned me as it shows we all connect on a deeper level than we realize through
our shared humanity and our shared feelings of love, longing, wonder, hurt, pain,
angst, and joy. When you strip away all the layers we surround ourselves with, we
are all still human. We are not cyborgs as the robotics industry would have us
believe, with interchangeable parts. We have souls and psyches, and these
intangible aspects of our humanity need proper feeding too. Poetry does that.
2) The poems of the past are still relevant today.
“If” by Kipling is the eternal parent’s guide to living a
decent, honorable life. “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley reminds us that no
matter what challenges or painful situations we face, our spirit can rise to
meet them. And “Ozymandias” by Percy
Bysshe Shelley reminds us that in our era of creeping Totalitarianism,
dictators have come and gone through the ages and the only thing that remains
are eternal truths, which will still be here long after the dictators are
buried in the sands of time.
3) Poems can teach a moral lesson.
A good poem can teach a moral lesson more effectively
than a book or a lecture. A poem that touches you on a gut level can have a
greater impact than even a great speech. It reaches a part of our brain that
affects us on a spiritual level. Think of “Blowin’ in the Wind” by Bob Dylan, a
protest song about peace, war, and freedom. Or “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2 about
the effects of government oppression, or “You’ve Got a Friend,” by Carole King,
about the qualities that make a true friend. The concepts could not be better
explained than through these powerful verses.
4) If you want to write poetry, don’t force it.
The best way to write poetry is to read a book on any
subject that you want to write about. Or look at a picture that conveys a feeling you would like to express. Let the information sink in for several
days, then come up with a concept or an opening line that introduces the idea
you wish to convey. Next, work out the meter and rhyme that will work for the
subject matter. For every problem there is always a solution.
5) Poetry is not going away anytime soon.
Humans are almost hard-wired to love verse. It is built
into our DNA and is not going away anytime soon. The success of “Hamilton: the
Musical” proves that. The fact that in this day and age theaters can fill up
with an eager public raring to see a play about a Founding Father told entirely
in verse speaks volumes about the public’s fascination with poetry and story-telling. It taps
into our shared human conscience. It connects us to something much bigger than
ourselves.
