For me poetry is akin to taking a photograph.
It is the way I 'snap' a thought, idea, emotion, event or experience.
I like to make it as uncluttered as possible.
Maybe it is more like a silhouette than a photograph.
I wrote a poem yesterday and this verse illustrates what I like to do with poetry
Sulky sea,
muddy green,
throws itself on the sand
in a salty-teared tantrum.
Cars woosh past,
a hush-a-bye lullabye,
but sea cannot be consoled.
This verse describes the long road alongside Swansea Bay on a rainy day. It 'snaps' that experience in a way that film nor photography could. I like poetry because it is multi-layered and can say many things all at once. I think I like the efficiency of it. It can engage so many different parts of my brain simultaneously. Although I have to admit I prefer to create it rather than read it.
There is something very satisfying in having a need to say something in a certain way and then getting it onto the paper in a form that works.
I know I've got somewhere when I read my own poem and then suddenly see another layer of meaning in it that is revealed to me only when the structure is finished. Something that was subliminally there and must have subconsciously interleaved itself into the words. I like to surprise myself.
The rest of this poem is on my poems-2-share blog which is where my 'serious' poems live.
