Thoughts On Poetry

Whenever I decided to dedicate my undergraduate degree to the English language, I never expected to fall in love with poetry. I think everyone is probably exposed to different poets whenever they're in high school.

(One rumor that was dispelled for me in college was that Edgar Allen Poe had TB and spread it to everyone he knew, thus killing everyone he loved. I swear, that false statement was bread somewhere deep in the Choctaw/Nicoma Park school district because I took a whole semester on Poe, and that was one of the only questions I asked our professor and he looked at me like I was crazy. But I swear everyone from Choctaw believes it.)

Frost, Poe, Byron (if you go to a private school), etc etc. But it wasn't until I dove head first into the study of poetry, that I really understood it. I love to talk about poetry- but ever since I've been removed from the academic scene I haven't really been immersed as much as I've liked to.

Recently Oklahoma has looked like this:

So I've had a few snow days and recently I've pulled out some of my old poetry notebooks, class aids and books of poetry, most notably Kim Addonizio. My poetry professor Doug introduced me to her the second semester I took his class. She is a gritty, raw poet that writes in a heavily female narrative. During that season of my life, I related a lot to what she wrote. It's interesting to go back and see how her poetry relates to my life now.

I haven't been writing much - or as much as I should - and I don't really know what is stopping me. Doug told us once that he didn't think writers were better people than everyone else, but he did think writers knew themselves more that anyone else. Maybe I'll be surprised/scared/angry at what I discover? Who knows.

Here's a quick rundown on my favorite Poets:

• Mary Oliver - Her poem "The Sun" was one of the first poems I ever fell in love with.
• Phillip Levine
• Kim Addonizio
• Marie Howe - Another female poet I could read for the rest of my life, and swear that she was taking the words out of my mouth
• Elizabeth Bishop - What can I say? I like bad-ass girl poets.
• Robert Frost - When I was in a poetry explication class, we studied him a lot. He was an American master of words. The best. Seriously. I'm not being cliche.
• William Carlos Williams - I almost forgot! I wrote a HUGE term paper over him and "The Red Wheelbarrow" My thesis was he used Keat's Negative Capability theory to write it.
• Doug Goetsch - My poetry professor for two semesters. He taught me a lot.

(I would also like to add that I hate Ezra Pound. He was an untalented fascist.)

I don't know what it is that draws me to this art so completely. Maybe it's way that poets contort words and put them so perfectly together so say so much. Maybe it's the way I feel when I do that myself - or when I look back on something that I wrote a long time ago, like having lunch with an old friend.

Maybe it's the putting the puzzle pieces together - to understand how the machine works. Alliteration here, slant rhyme there. Or maybe it's when the puzzle pieces don't fit at all but there's still a beautiful picture.

All I know, is I couldn't live fully without it.

Malory