What is "it" about Poetry?

 

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April is Poetry Month

In the USA and in other parts of the world, many poets take up the challenge of writing a poem a day.  I am no longer one of them.  But in this month, I like to think about poetry--what and why it is, and why I write it--and that's what I'm asking us each to do today.  Like me, you may have written on this topic before.  What has changed, if anything, since then?   

Please write a poem on the theme of poetry, the topic "Why I write it" or "What it is" or "What it should be."

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William Wordsworth said "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." Since he wrote that hundreds of poets have described it.  

Here are a few ideas of poetry:

  “Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.” —Audre Lorde

 “As I write, I create myself again and again.” —Joy Harjo

“My weapon has always been language, and I’ve always used it, but it has changed. Instead of shaping the words like knives now, I think they’re flowers, or bridges.” ­—Sandra Cisneros

 “A poem is a small (or large) machine made out of words.” —William Carlos Williams

And Emily Dickinson said "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."

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Here are links to three inspiring poems about poetry: 

• Poetry by MARIANNE MOORE 
• How to Be a Poet by WENDELL BERRY
• Gitanjali 65 by RABINDRANATH TAGORE

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And here is one poem: 

 Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish

 

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
                 *
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.
                  *
A poem should be equal to:
Not true.
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—
A poem should not mean
But be.

 

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Link one poem that is your response to this prompt.

When you link your poem, please visit other linked poems.

And please include this link in your post.