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Reading Poetry

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I’ve been reading a lot of poetry since my last post.  Often poetry is what I go to when feeling contemplative about life and loss.  I guess what I like about reading poetry is that moment of recognition, when all the emotions and images come together and suddenly everything is illuminated.  I like how poets find the profound in the mundane, the sublime in the everyday.

James Still is one of my favorite writers.  He was a novelist, a short story writer, a poet.  He was a Kentuckian.  In fact he was the first Kentucky Poet Laureate.  I never got to meet James Still.   But his work has had a huge influence on my own writing.  He had a pitch perfect ear for how real people talk — especially people living in eastern Kentucky.  His stories, often about boys growing wild on the mountainside or getting into trouble in coal towns, seem simple, but each one is so finely layered with meaning and truth, each one is a masterpiece.

I was recently reading through The New and Collected Poems by James Still, which was published in 2001, and came upon a poem that really spoke to me as a writer about how truly tenuous the act of writing can be, how fragile the moment of creation.

Visitor

There was a poem here yesterday,

But not now.

It sat for many an hour

Unwelcomed, unnoticed.

It went away for lack

Of ears to hear,

Eyes to see,

Hearts to open.

The poem went away

and did not look back.

I think the line I love the most is:  hearts to open.  Being a writer, or any kind of artist, means having to open yourself up.  To possibilities, to risks, to hope, to failure.

This is possibly a picture of James Still, who was one of the only male Pack Horse Librarians circa 1930.

18 thoughts on “Reading Poetry”

  2. Yes, unfortunately I think I’ve had a few stories and novels and picture books go away for lack of ears to hear. I try to be receptive every single day, but it doesn’t always work!

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  9. Its like you read my mind! You seem to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with a few pics to drive the message home a bit, but other than that, this is fantastic blog. A fantastic read. I will certainly be back.

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