This Is Poetry?
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Picture of the morning fog near w. el camono aveneue in Sacramento taken on a morning walk.
Poetry is the Divine
whispering secrets in your ear.
Spoken in the Mother-tongue,
the ancient language
of sounds that
synchronize the soul
and harmonize the heart.
To your ear,
it will be sweet nothings
and the feeling
that you are loved.
Cultivating Your Wisdom is part of a larger process for
transforming experience into wisdom, living life beautifully,
making your unique contribution to the world,
and leaving behind a meaningful legacy.
I call this process:
Wording the World
I shivered when the poem, This Is Poetry, came to me almost in its entirety in one flash. It was a sublime moment. What made me shiver was not the poem itself or the revelation of it, which seemed natural, but the bold claim made in the poem and expressed in the title, “This is poetry.” My first thought was, who am I to claim a corner on truth about poetry?
This Is Poetry is published in my third book of poetry, Divine Whispering, available through Amazon.
I have no literary credential and no foothold in the world of poets or poetry. I never studied poetry formally and cannot tell you the structure of a haiku or the form of iambic pentameter. I have never published any poem in accepted poetry circles, never submitted a piece to a contest, and I have only read my poems on three or four occasions at poetry readings. I have completely bypassed the traditional route poets take to gain credibility.
When I first shared “This Is Poetry” with a group of students in an NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) class, I had to resist the urge to add a disclaimer or to attribute it to the prolific author, Anonymous. The truth is that I have always felt I am an illegitimate child. Though this is an affliction suffered by millions, each one of us suffers in isolation. Our uniqueness separates us from the herd, a distinction most misfits value, but isolates us as oddballs. We may share innumerable commonalities with humanity, but we each long to be loved for the person we are. We long to be loved as ourself.
Later, I had a chance to share a reading of the poem with a group of writers led by a famous poet and author. They gave rather critical feedback, which was part of the intent of the group. The author was clearly not impressed with the poem and said to the group, rather decisively, "That is not poetry to me." The comment stung me confirming my illegitimate status. I used my NLP skills to put the event into perspective and thanked him and the group for the feedback. Criticism is part of the path of a maverick and it is up to us to keep the flame of our passion alive even when the world attempts to blow it out.
How do you keep your passion
when the world is hostile toward it?
Please share your thoughts and comments below
