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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