Poetic Journey

I just finished a book that I've been working on. It's a good feeling, but I'm a little sad too. It always seems to be that way. When I write, I put so much of my heart and soul in it, and when I'm done, I can't help but feel that I'm sending one of my children away to camp. It's even worse being a ghostwriter. The work doesn't stay with me. It's gone, and I can never re-claim it. Although I love the plethora of opportunities of ghostwriting, I hate not being able to take the credit. My biggest fear is that I'm going to leave some of my most inspired work, that which only comes on occasion to every writer and poet, for someone else to take and call their own.

This latest work was a collection of poems that I wrote for a Belgian photographer for a coffee-table book that he is publishing. It was a wonderful project, and I loved the experience. I am not allowed to go into any detail about the work, but I can say that the experience was a journey of reflection on the misery that some people deal with in their lives. It was emotionally draining, but rewarding at the same time.

I had not reflected on poetry as a pure art since I was working on my MFA in Creative Writing. Back then, I was a poet at heart, and I lived that art. I loved that art. It embodied everything that I did, and it affected how I viewed the world. But then life happened. The real world has a way of deadening our senses, causing us to miss the little things. Those little things are really the narrator of life, and I've missed them. I'm so happy that, now, I have reinvented myself, and I proudly don poet's eyes once again.

Poetry, to me, is the noblest art. It's an outlet to reflect and to describe, and it captures the essence of our existence, both physical, emotional, and mental. Over the years, poetry has meant many things. It has gone through many transformations, and it has experienced the ebbs and flows of public appreciation. Unfortunately, we live in a time where the public has turned a deaf ear to poetry. Computers, television, and automation have taken their toll on poetry. Hallmark too. Now, anyone who can rhyme calls themselves a poet, and that is a shame. Poetry is so much more.

When I worked for Tar River Poetry, I had an opportunity to review thousands of poems each year, critiquing them for their quality as it related to our vision of what poetry should be. It was a wonderful experience, but an unfortunate one because I became a critic more than a poet. But it did teach me what I considered to be MY definition of poetry. And that is what guides me to this day in regards to what style or "school" I claim.

Poetry is not about rhyming. Meter was once in vogue, but the actual rhyme itself is not poetry. It's musical, and it provides cadence, but not all things are musical in life. In fact, in our very fragmented world, very few things are musical anymore. In fact, industrialization, at the turn of the 20th century, propagated a new style of poetry that represented fragmentation, machination, and social unrest. That doesn't mean that all poetry shouldn't rhyme. No, some should. But it's more about capturing a moment, an event, an emotion. In that way, a poet should be free to examine the best way to create an emotional response to that which he is writing about, and there are many ways to do that.

As I was writing these last poems, I found myself expressing my emotions in so many different ways. I let the photographs lead me to the style, and I did my best to capture a moment, bring it to life, and create, not only an emotional response, but also a call for action. A statement. That is the poet's responsibility. I loved it, and it made me want to go out on my own and write my own poetry for me.

The process made me realize that I am still caught between the harsh realities of this world and the poet's eye. I am disappointed that, when I became inspired to write my own poetry to be published, I paused and thought about the economic realities. No one makes money writing poetry, I told myself. I failed at that very moment. I failed for myself and my art. There is still a lot of growth that I have to go through before I can truly embody the spirit of the poet.