Writing what’s on your mind

Hi everyone,

The thing about poetry is that you can write about virtually anything you see, read, overhear, experience, dream of, worry about, or wish for. There is no limit. You can get all that in a novel or play or short story, but those efforts all take considerably longer. Even if a poem runs several pages, it remains one of the quickest ways we have for getting it down.

There are sad writers who tend to write about sadness; angry ones who need to air their reasons; those who are focused on a specific cause, those who aspire to be funny… Whatever the motivation, writing a poem can be cathartic. But we can’t be serious all the time, or humorous or ticked off or pushing the cause. Sometime — often — we write about the moment, we write because it just feels good. Said differently, it feels wrong not to.

T. S. Eliot was a serious poet who loved cats and writing about them. Billie Collins sometimes seems to slouch in the doorway to chat about something he wants to share. He’s not always serious. One of his poems is about walking across the ocean, wondering what the bottoms of his bare feet look like to the creatures below. One of Ted Kooser’s poems is about a guy standing before a mirror tying his tie.

The point is that the act of writing has value of its own. I enjoy reading the poems of contributors to Word of the Month Poetry Challenge. Eliot referred to his light poems as palate cleansers from the more severe themes of his other work. Feel free to borrow his term. Sometimes the best thing to write about is something in the moment. The point isn’t to make a poem for the ages. The point is to make a poem for you.