I never really “got” poetry. We memorized poems in school. “Listen my children and you shall hear…” “Mighty Casey has struck out.”   “Draw near and fear not,—this is I, The Lady of Shalott.”

I’ve read poems. The few poetry books I purchased or inherited were solely for use as a one-shot deal thing to read at an occasion. Infrequently a poem may have linked to a personal event.  Humorous, dour, scary. I got that, but they all seemed so… far removed from how I viewed words.

So as much as I love to play with words, and am in awe of the power of words, and churn out essays and short stories, and create parodies of songs, and laugh at limericks, I’ve shied away from poetry. To read; to recite – yes. But to write? To really get deep meaning from a poem? Not for me.

And that decades-old thought turned to a belief. I could not be a poet. Even as I reveled in writing and published two books of which I am extremely proud, I turned away from poetry.

Gradually, in a kind of slow awakening, people brought me to the possibilities of a change of heart.

• My sister entered a poetry contest and won. A teaching colleague recited poems with glee.
• A writing colleague and I presented a writing workshop on “Red Ribbons and White Shoelaces.” The red ribbon was my childhood memory and white shoelaces were the theme in one of her prose poems.

This was getting interesting.

Over time, I seemed to have gathered a poetry book collection

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•  Bill Black, a cowboy poet and writing colleague, generously shared many ideas about poetry, making it seem more accessible.

• Paula Brown shared weekly about poems she is writing, revising, submitting, and getting published.
• Our hiking group created hiking haikus for fun – and it was fun!!
• A spiritual group colleague, Susan Seid, wrote haikus during morning mediation. Now she’s writing a book of haikus.

Poetry was seeping into my life.

• My yoga instructor, Trish Harris  combines yoga, chants, and poetry- often, a Mary Oliver poem.

 Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” describes the grace and uniformity in a flock of geese as all being part of the family of things. I think I have found a place in the family of poetry.

Our next meeting is coming up . I’m going over David White’s book The Heart Aroused. It’s filled with his poems and other gems. Sir Derek Walcott and Antonio Machado are in the running to share.