April 2, 2014 Christi

National Poetry Month: You Expand the Definition

To highlight National Poetry Month, I’ve been talking in Burn Wild class about how each poet brings something new to the definition of poetry.

Poetry was never e.e. cummings or Mary Oliver or William Stafford until they created their work in the world, released their voice, and expanded what poetry could be.

In the same way, even if you’ve never written a poem, you can decide for yourself what you like and what your boundaries are. You can celebrate your own way of seeing things. You can choose where to place the words on the page. And suddenly: poetry is now expanded by the presence of a new poet.

Here is how Wildfire Writer Susan Gordinier expands the definition of poetry:

The Poem

A new way to see

Inside

A way to let

Inside

Out

A journey

A discovery

A road map

A vacation

A path that brings you

Roundabout—

About what to say

How to take the think

And make

New something

A new

Feeling

A

Release

A let it go

Catharsis

Yes

 

I do like poems

Because i

Don’t like

VERBOSE

 

And I also

Like

Rhythm

And

The taste

Of the

Words

in

My

mouth

 

And

That

Is

How

I

Want

To

write

–Susan Gordinier

Now I’d like to invite other Wildfire Writers – those of you who are using a ten-minute practice you’ve learned in my class or elsewhere – to share your poems with me. I’d love to show them off during this month. Post them on the Wildfire Writing Facebook page and some might even find their way here.

Keep saying what you need to say, the way you want to say it . . .

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