I would hugely appreciate such a warning, as I am incredibly wary of poems. They are dangerous, wily creatures that lie in ambush, lurking stealthily beneath words in my personal scary wilderness. Seemingly restful and innocent, luring me in closer to the stunning flourishes, the polished simplicity, the sweetness of gentle phrases, incredibly lovely to SNAP/?crunch&%^!wallop – and suddenly I’m dazed, leaking blood or tears and left aching in the dust. Or I see something fluorescent green with a clunky gait, seventeen heads and galloping backwards and am told to my bafflement “Oh, that’s a poem.”

Poetry represents my first concrete, unpleasant realisation that language could be mean.  My teacher opened my mind to the beauty of poetry, so readily created in six little lines of rhyme, in something called (so delightfully to a besotted seven year old) a “lim-er-ick”. The giddiness lasted 10 minutes, until Mrs Sumpton told the whole class to make up a limerick about someone – and all but two of my classmates wrote a limerick about me. Kellie. Jelly. Telly. Belly. Oh, the inhumanity.

and in my bumbling fearful heartbreak I
find myself as useless in consolation as
I imagine; no more, no less … I loathe this
mortal question

Years passed, and I still wrote poetry (though not limericks if I could avoid it). I even took a poetry class at university and enjoyed every angst hounded syllable of it. I have several favourite Australian poems memorised, and songs that I classify as poetry with music. Nowadays, I read poems if they happens to be included in what I’m reading – generally through my Segullah journal subscription. But I worry that I just “don’t get it”, that the greater meaning is slipping past me, that I’m too dumb or trying too hard. Are poems (and all their lyrical layers) actually simple to understand?

in easy silence, tucking corners easily and
smoothing out the years of complication.

I love words. I love the way that some people can string them together just so to sear a picture in my imagination;

and someday you will run to me with
muddy hands and
pull on my shirt and
lay your head in that warm place between
my neck and my shoulder and

or share a relationship;

Rippling syllables, staccato-like words,
round his soft ears as he pretends to bend
around my life and understand. He sees me,

or a thought;

The quality exceeds the sum total of addends.
Add you up again—
and consider multiplication.

or a question;

Did she walk reluctant or
Grasp with arms open
To have her name forever
Braided with tragedy?

or pull my thoughts to the deeper in everyday

Silver lines snake up my belly
and my daughter claims them
with childlike pride and I’ve

I’m not a poet, and I know it. Like envying people who can sing in tune and on stage, I wish that I could create the music, the cascade of phrase and emotion into such precise, stunningly packaged morsels. But I can’t.

O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart…
…But behold, I… do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me.

But Lord, for the effort, and beauty, and connection that such talented women put into their poetry, I’m glad that somehow, somewhere, they are creating something that simply takes my breath away in connection and admiration.

Alleluia.

Do you like poetry? What do/don’t you like about poetry? Do you understand poems easily? Do you write poetry? Do you count song lyrics as poetry? What is poetry to you? What are some of your favourite poems, poets or poetesses?

Related posts:

1. Haiku Away!
2. To Hope For That Which Is Not Seen
3. Now Accepting Entries