Poetry has always been a love of mine. From Dylan Thomas to Bob Dylan. To Keats to Yeats to Ginsberg to Billy Collins. But writing it (other than occasional song lyrics) has always intimidated me. Until about two years ago when I started writing with some diligence, learning, and emoting as I went along. Then, I had one published. Then another. And another. Now? Am I a poet? I don't think of myself as one, but the "act" of poetry, as you write about here so well, is something that is now a kind of discipline for me. I can't go on without it.
I love this post - it's more analytical than a brilliant one I read by a Episcopalian priest and poet (published in the NYT last year) and (fortunately) less long that Dana Gioia's dissertation on the subject, "Does Poetry matter."
Poetry has always been a love of mine. From Dylan Thomas to Bob Dylan. To Keats to Yeats to Ginsberg to Billy Collins. But writing it (other than occasional song lyrics) has always intimidated me. Until about two years ago when I started writing with some diligence, learning, and emoting as I went along. Then, I had one published. Then another. And another. Now? Am I a poet? I don't think of myself as one, but the "act" of poetry, as you write about here so well, is something that is now a kind of discipline for me. I can't go on without it.
It's something akin to an addiction, I think...
I love this post - it's more analytical than a brilliant one I read by a Episcopalian priest and poet (published in the NYT last year) and (fortunately) less long that Dana Gioia's dissertation on the subject, "Does Poetry matter."
Thanks so much, Carol.