about a poem
A poem is precise. The assembly and structure of words and pauses isolate the feeling, vision, and imperative of a moment worth sharing. A poet provides direct and indirect access to their experience with language that simultaneously reveals and shrouds.
A poem is ambiguous. The enigma of a poem allows the reader to place themselves within it, to read a poem as a forest, walk amongst words, connect with deeper roots unseen. Gaps and metaphor invite the reader to pour themselves into the mold of another – to fill, sink, recede, and overflow the cracks and crevices of a moment so personal that it must be universally shared.
A poem is a map. The landscape bends as rivers flow, with time and temperance. The more poetry you read, the more you recognize paths to the deserts, plains, and shores. You begin to know the trees not by name but by feeling. A mountain is a mountain to anyone who sees.
A book of poetry is a universe, one of many in the mind of a poet with the courage to share their verse.
A poem is a planet, a world emerging from ether, bound by memory and explored with an inner light, however dimmed, daunted, or defiant.
Ambiguity allows for connection and forces confidence between reader and writer, establishing boundaries for discussion and suggesting a lens through which to consider the myriad layers and shades of living.
Because nothing, no poem and certainly no one, is exactly what they say.
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