Last week I was asked to contribute to The Whig Standard's 'AboutBooks' section. This column asked a few Kingston poets what poetry means to each of us, or more simply: Why Poetry? Here is my response:
Poetry transports me in a way no other writing can. I approach the writing of a poem with only a vague notion of what it will become, the possibilities being endless: a thousand page epic or a single letter on an otherwise blank sheet of paper. When I write, I’m never certain what will show up next. Sometimes it’s a delightful surprise, like a visit and old from friend who’s been lost at sea. Sometimes it’s startling, a shark in the bathtub. There are times when I finish a poem and something entirely unexpected has happened: a goldfish has appeared, swimming around my head. I wonder, where did that goldfish come from? It certainly wasn’t there when I began writing, or if it was, it was lost in the ether, oscillating between dimensions, and I’m just one of the chosen, the blessed, lucky enough to have caught a glimpse.
Poetry transports me in a way no other writing can. I approach the writing of a poem with only a vague notion of what it will become, the possibilities being endless: a thousand page epic or a single letter on an otherwise blank sheet of paper. When I write, I’m never certain what will show up next. Sometimes it’s a delightful surprise, like a visit and old from friend who’s been lost at sea. Sometimes it’s startling, a shark in the bathtub. There are times when I finish a poem and something entirely unexpected has happened: a goldfish has appeared, swimming around my head. I wonder, where did that goldfish come from? It certainly wasn’t there when I began writing, or if it was, it was lost in the ether, oscillating between dimensions, and I’m just one of the chosen, the blessed, lucky enough to have caught a glimpse.
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