Why I Write Poems

How poetry saves us; nourishes us and helps us

Photo by Sam Burke on Unsplash

A poem is a marvel of conception—a glorious mixture of vowel and consonant; stirring thoughts emerging with sublime lines.

Poems are formed from feelings, ideas, impressions and epiphanies. Anything and anyone can become fodder for the fire that brings a glorious blaze to the poet’s heart. The poet creates a pile of sticks and barked wood then strikes a match that ignites a fire that brings light, warmth and community to gather round and find one another.

A twig of an idea laid on gently to a pile of other collected sticks of thoughts and larger branches of ideas becomes the making for the fire of a poem. It’s not so much a piling on of many sentences, but it is in the laying out of the wood—the building of the fodder that matters. A good fire begins with space—the space offered for the twigs to ignite and catch fire—where the poem can breath on its on. This is why I so love poems—because I am offered space to think my own thoughts alongside of the poet—-space to not be told or lectured—but space to find companionship and to find myself around the fire with the poet.

The poet, Judy Brown has said it best for me when I read her poem, “Fire.”

What makes a fire burn

is space between the logs,

a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

too many logs

packed in too tight

can douse the flames

almost as surely

as a pail of water would.

So building fires

requires attention

to the spaces in between,

as much as to the wood.

Poetry creates space to breath. In poems and in reading of poems out loud, we hold space for something to happen in us—for fire to ignite—for air to be exhaled that we have held far too long in the pit of our gut. We exhale. We inhale and in the exchange of breath and ideas we find that we are alive—that our hearts are still beating inside our chests. Inhaling insight and exhaling sighs of relief that someone gets you—someone understands what it is that you’ve been trying to say for years.

These words can rhyme or not; be in stanza or verse; be free flowing or like a linear map or knot being untied that promises freedom. A poem is the digested nourishment that flows through a sort of umbilical cord from the author to the fingers of the poet holding a pen or typing a keyboard.

I sent fifty poems—the ones that stood out in some way or another to my editor to review and edit. Each poem—a contender to make it into my poetry book. It’s my hope and intention to publish my book of poems in the Fall of 2025. Each poem—like a baby, fresh with new born life, but seen now in black and white ink printed on paper. But the poems are so, so much more than ink on paper. No one will really ever know the pain of the childbirth of these poems. What I said in short little phrases and lines—even stanzas took me years to get out—years to deliver myself of these poems. Something needed to be birthed in me; something needed to be said. I needed a new way to say such things and poetry saved my life and still does to this very day.

Sending the poems off to the editor is like sending a child to a sort of finishing school. One needs more grooming. Another needs major re-working. While another seems breech—unable to come out quite right. In sending my poems off to my editor, it’s now her job to do what I cannot do—to give attention to detail of commas, periods, structure and flow.

In the early days of my writing , I remember writing a page or two and sending it out to a few friends who could offer me feedback—tell me if what I had just written was any good. Their opinions determined the validity of what I had written. That changed over time as I learned to trust my voice—trust that what I had just done was good—maybe very good, just like God said when as the Creator, God finished creating the universe. God created. God pronounced what was written as “good” and then God rested from the work of creation. I like this rhythm. It is a sustainable pattern for good work—good writing—good creativity in any form.

Create.

Pronounce what is created as good.

Rest and move away from the work and “let” what was created just be.

Photo by Domie Sharpin on Unsplash

Poetry is like fishing. Writing poetry is my own way of fishing. I bait the hook. I put a worm—a few words together on the hook of a poem and cast it out—seeing if anyone or anything might bite. If I feel a nibble, then I know. I know that someone is hungry—someone is looking for their daily bread—someone is seeking nourishment. Poems are my way of seeing if anyone else is going to nibble —to smell the poem; taste the poem and then be hooked by the poem.

I so well remember being hooked by the poems of John O’Donohue, Mary Oliver, David Whyte. These three specifically formed a sort of ‘Trinity of Poets’ that I devoured. I have read everything each of these poets have ever said. I was nourished by what I bit off from their hooks and barbs in their own fishing expeditions of writing poems. In each and every book I have published, you’ll see that I quoted each of these poets extensively. It is through their baited hooks that I was caught—the hook got set in me and they reeled me in and I have never been the same.

Some poems pierce us so deeply that we never get over the poem. We feel as if the poem has caught us so hard; that the teeth of our hearts have bitten down do hard on the poem that we are caught; we are found; we discover that there are far more fish in the seas of life than we ever imagined.

It’s new ground for me to stand as a poet on the banks of the river from where you are standing today. Every day I go fishing in my study. I grab my pole, line and tackle and head out into the horizons of my own life that beckons me. I use to want fishing companions in my writing. But I am discovering that the big fish are scared off by crowds. For me to write what I am writing, I must venture into the woods alone and find the bank of the pond that is still, quiet and unspoiled by noise.

Here’s a poem I feel most proud of—one that will for sure make it into my book. Why? Because somehow in this very poem, I put the hook into the water where many big fish swim and many who read this poem, bite hard and found themselves caught, discovered and seen!

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