A Poetic Peek

Poetry’s not for everyone. There are volumes of it I’ve never read or care to, some I have and wondered why, and others I’ve been stupefied by the contemplative and obscure state of new understanding it gave me. And although poetry is the subject of this post, I only occasionally read it.

But, April is National Poetry Month. I read about it in an article in this month’s O Magazine. What I loved most about the article was the side-bar views poet Laura Kasischke shared that you don’t have to understand poetry, it doesn’t have to mean something specific, it’s not a test. She says, “Poems aren’t meant to express what can be expressed in everyday language,” and “ … they offer us strange new experiences.” I like her view point. It’s more palatable than the iron-grip convictions held by many of the English teachers I had who insisted we uncover the subtle yet, in their minds, intended meaning in the most banal phrases written in the prose and poems we studied. Everything that’s written isn’t necessarily loaded with hidden meaning. Sometimes filler is just filler.

I agree that we don’t have to understand poetry. But to read a poem that sounds and feels so foreign that I can’t find any trace of my own personal feelings to relate to in it or that doesn’t invoke an Aha! kind of revelation, or gets me thinking more deeply – that poetry just doesn’t seduce me. I’ve not studied the technical forms and structure of poetry yet know there are many. In keeping with my usual approach to creativity, I’m not interested in the rules and tend to lean towards the how-ever-you-want-to-build-it form. It’s more creative, more enticing.

My mother enjoyed poetry, reading it and writing her own. She liked the rhyming type the best, I believe. As for me, poetry was o.k, but not something I sought out. Maybe that’s because I hadn’t yet found a poet that spoke to me. Prose was more my style, until high school, that is, with it’s often confusing adolescent feelings and that wrenching, first teenage-boy-induced heart ache. First love, even if only platonic, can be euphoric but turns paralyzing when lost or unrequited. Suddenly, it seemed, I discovered on my own what Laura Kasischke said that, “Poems aren’t meant to express what can be expressed in every day language.” My strange, new experiences with muddled adolescent emotions and crushed heart turned me to writing poetry in order to vent my turmoil, understand and quell it. The language of the heart is ever so hard to communicate. Writing poetry became both my heart’s confidant and voice.

I wrote this poem as a junior on April 8, 1970. I was a good note taker even then, apparently, and am delighted to have had the forethought to date what I wrote. It will quickly become apparent that I also love alliteration.

Perennial Perplexity     by Carol Falman (Watson)

The solace of a sovereign sun suddenly

slips within a hazy horizon.

Rambling retrospections now replace previous

pleasures, hallowed happiness.

Singular sharing in a mixed up mind,

inevitable evanescent hope.

Wondering whether onerous outlooks

will fade . . . opalescent orb of day

ever rise again.

Going though my poems it’s obvious that during my junior year in high school I had much stuff to work out. I was rather prolific. Gratefully, the creatively therapeutic and cathartic act of pen to paper must have worked. This untitled poem from 12.31.70, when I was a high school senior, holds gobs more optimistic hope than Perennial Perplexity.

make a steadfast stance

within the land

to find yourself anew

erase yesterday’s past

live today for what you search

escape the prison of your doubts

let all thoughts flow like the river

to set your soul free

show how you feel

find what you are

then find your life

in what you search

cast off your effete shell

find where you stand

contemplate not on what life might be

live life to let yourself show through.

     by Carol Falman (Watson)

As best I recall, after high school I allowed massive cobwebs to grow on any ideas of writing more poetry. Somehow the need didn’t arise. College was like a giant petri dish for discovering who I was now that I was living away from home in a dorm with my free-will under less scrutiny. It was an exciting time, not one that seemed to need reflection or feelings sorted out. Even later still when I suddenly fell in love for real with the man who literally walked into my life, would become my best friend and life partner, my husband Steve, I don’t recall writing poems.

But at age 43, when life pulled the rug out from under my feet and totally and unexpectedly stole my loving mother away, the need to once again vent my turmoil, make sense of the abrupt void and ease my aching heart turned me back to writing poetry. Eventually the poetry succeeded doing its therapeutic job along with time and the remembrance titled Phyllis and Me that I wrote. The pen is so much mightier than the  sword – a lesson the world would be good to learn.

The poem I’m about to share was written after my mom died, but it’s not dark or dripping with anguish. I can’t take all the credit for it, though, since my deceased mother and I co-wrote it. Yes, you read that correctly!

On a morning seven months after Phyllis was gone, Steve and I were out at a restaurant eating breakfast when, wham, bang, out-of-the blue, three lines of rhyming verse popped into my head. It was silly. It wasn’t from any thing I’d ever heard before. I laughed, instantly knowing that my good-natured mother had dropped them into my head, maybe as a sign to lighten up, move on, to remember her humor and live with more laughter and less tears. Steve said I ought to finish it – there was something more to say. A few weeks later I did. It’s a co-authored silly little ditty by mother and daughter written in May, 1997!

Ode to Air     by Phyllis Falman and Carol Watson

Angels sing

And Angels dance

All because they wear no pants.

Celestial air uplifts their wings

It makes them float and glide.

But most of all the air feels best

On parts they have to hide.

In case you’re wondering why I’m so sure my mother fed me the first three lines, it’s because she enjoyed light verse like those of Ogden Nash and others. This certainly fits that profile hands down. Also, given her new plane of existence she would have first-hand, intimate knowledge of angels. It worked for me.

Moving forward 11 years to 2009, the last poem I’ll share with you is one I was inspired to write after reading in Elaine St. James book, Living The Simple Life. Although I don’t have that book anymore – I culled it out during one of my bouts of simplifying having taken her advice to heart – I did record in my journal what influenced me to pen the piece. St. James indicated that after a 14 year old boy read a particular passage in her book, he realized he was lonely for himself. Reading that made me pause and ponder.

If a 14 year old found that he was lonely for himself, perhaps I should do a reality check on myself. Had I been ignoring myself? Was I being true to myself? Was I lonely for myself? I turned to poetry, that often-overlooked tool that can give such an abstract sense of clarity in a way that prose cannot. I wrote the first line, a question really, and let the rest just flow. Being open to free-form poetry and inviting contemplation with a simple question can bring forth an amazing spring of inner, non-tangible ooze you didn’t know you were capable of housing.

On Being Me     by Carol A. Watson   12.3.09

What am I if not myself.

A ball of scrap yarn

overlapping remnants

of dissimilar projects.

The views of others

held tight to save

in case they were right

in case I may need them after all.

Better to be a lose skein

pure color

one thread from a common source

unraveling to create

life of my own design

following my heart, my origin

uncontaminated by the scrap shards

of others.

Poetry may not be for everyone. For me it’s yet another creative way to discover more about myself, express what’s often difficult to in other ways, and has enabled me to find clarity in the midst of emotional chaos. It’s therapy without the price tag and offers an extraordinary way to view life.

Posted by carol@mylifewithcreativity.com & filed under Writings. This post has 2 comments.