Poetry in Motion
I love that song Someday We'll Know, originally of the New Radicals and covered (excellently, I thought) by Mandy Moore and Jonathan Feldman. It's so poetic - by this, I don't just mean the words are beautiful, but that it strikes a cord with me, which I've always felt the best poetry does. So many people I know don't like poetry - don't like reading it, would never write it. This is a shame and a tragedy on the scale of never having learned to read at all. Truth is poetry. Love is poetry. Life is poetry. The best poets knew this, embraced this, and tried to share this wonder with readers in their work. But I think a lot of poetry haters don't seem to know this: songs are just poetry set to words, which is why I started off this blog by talking about one of my favorite songs. So everytime you appreciate a good song, you're really just appreciating a poem. You're seeing bits and pieces of your own life, yourself, in someone else's words and you're connected to that person in a unique way, crossing continents and time. So a line written by someone else, that may have a personal meaning to him/her, like "Speeding by the place that I met you/For the ninety-seventh time" can have a deep personal meaning for me as well and in that instant, regardless, I have made contact with another person, I have shared a truth with a person who is physically absent. And that's nothing to sneer at. For a taste of the best, if you're not already a poetry aficionado, I suggest reading one poem from each of the following: Pablo Neruda, Christina Rosetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, e.e. cummings, Betsy Gould Hearne, Shel Silverstein and of course, the immmortal bard, William Shakespeare. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I happen to love a number of peoms from these poets, and my tastes are pretty diverse. Enjoy!
Final thought: So many questions, I need an answer...