APRIL IS POETRY MONTH?

   Apparently, April is Poetry Month. Who knew? According to Wikipedia (The Free Encyclopedia), "National Poetry Month is a celebration of poetry first introduced in 1996 by The Academy of Poetry as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States."

   Okay, here is a confession of mine that just stays between us. It doesn’t go beyond this site. Agreed? Good. Here it is. I only understand my own poetry. There, I admit it! I can’t help it. How many of you are like me? Come on, show of hands here. How many of you are like me on this? (For all of you who are raising your hands right now, thank you. But you do realize I can’t see you, right? So maybe you should just put your hands down very slowly. Just pretend you were stretching if there are other people around who are wondering why you just raised your hand for no reason.)

   You see, I know what I mean when I write something because the idea and symbolism came out of my head, but I don’t always understand what other people mean when they write about something, and they’re not blunt about it.

   For example, the first two lines in the poem “Design” by Robert Frost are:

       "I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

       On a white heal-all, holding up a moth"

   First of all, I’ve never seen a white spider before. I’ve only seen the little black ones, and have never ever felt the need to get close enough to notice if they had dimples. A dimple on a spider? What? How? Don’t want to know. I just squash them and don’t ask questions.

   Secondly, when I see heal-all, I think of something medicinal like aspirin. A spider sitting on an aspirin? Apparently not. A heal-all in this poem refers to a flower. I’ve heard of roses, tulips, and daffodils. I’ve never heard of a flower called heal-all, but whatever. If I didn’t cheat and look up the meaning of the entire poem, I wouldn’t know what Mr. Frost was writing about.

   And don’t even get me started on Shakespeare’s sonnets. I had to look up practically every other word when I read them in school. Trust me, I earned my A and my constant headaches in that Shakespeare class.

    So basically, most poems that I don’t write myself confuse me. Am I alone here?

    Well, since I mentioned poetry, I thought I’d add one to this post. Let me know what you think.

FIND ME

by

Patricia G.

Find me

Chasing dreams,

Reaching out to past goals.

See you, Dream Killer

Saying I can’t,

You so-and-so.

Catch me

Venturing out,

Blogging and Facebooking,

What’s a tweet?

Is it cheap?

Opportunity as an app?

Spotted you

Laughing still,

Aspirations ready to kill.

Thinking I won’t,

You so-and-so.

Notice me

Site creating

Risk debating

Taking leaps

Chasing dreams

Cause there’s nowhere else to go.

The other way to express this poem is...

Trying to be a dream killer?

That’s not right.

The End.

What? You expected more? I think that last part was Haiku or something. Yes, see creativity can come in many forms, I tell you. Many, many forms. Some of them are good, and some of them not so much.   

Happy Poetry Month!