Posted in Its a CARNIVAL
Poetry Every Day
A Brief History
My history with poetry is less than exciting. To be quite honest with you, I stink at writing poetry. I am just not DEEP enough, I guess, to really write from that tortured soul perspective. I absolutely did not get why haiku was so popular in elementary school. When introduced to poetry in middle school and high school I wondered how the poetry we studied could even earn the title of poetry when NOTHING rhymed. Then, in college, I really struggled to see the Jesus figure the professor saw in every piece of poetry or story that we studied. Needless to say my INNER POET has been a bit scarred along the way.
It wasnt until I took a class in childrens literature and discovered childrens poetry that my love of poetry began to take root. Once I discovered Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein, a whole new world opened up for me. I rushed out and bought poetry books for my personal library and began to seek out other poets and collected works. I rediscovered Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Robert Frost, William Butler Yeats, and the beautiful sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Then Dan began to introduce me to great stuff by Robert Service, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Sandburg and the hilarious antics of Ogden Nash. Then there is the whole genre of Cowboy Poetry. LOL Dan is a real poetry buff.
Once I was sold on the idea of poetry Dan started writing some for me. He is quite good, by the way, but I digress
Then Came the Children
Once we had our first child and he began to speak we started playing word games. It was as natural to play with language as rolling off a log. We played rhyming games and made little poems and songs. We would make up little stories and funny nonsense words and laugh together over it all.
It did not take me long to realize, that as much as I had thought poetry was a waste of time earlier in my life, I knew that poetry had become a part of our daily lives in a powerful way. It showed up in the songs we sang and in the things we were teaching our children. Watching the children play with the language and discover their own voices has been an absolute joy for us. To hear their attempts at rhyming and putting phrases together to be humorous has been such a delightful part of life.
Now, we just play those games without thinking. We take songs and change the words and make up our own poetry. We tell stories in sing song style. We read poetry from books we have collected. We take delight in the language of the poets and lyricists that make our lives richer.
As our oldest son begins to understand more about language we have begun talking about the poetic patterns in the Bible. We talk about the idea of rhyming thoughts and not just words. We have talked about how the original Hebrew and Greek texts take concepts to develop poetry that translates into EVERY language. That is just so amazing to me how that works.
The Poet in Us All
I have discovered that poetry is for the uninhibited. Children are such geniuses with language because they are not stunted by rules and regulations or patterns that they must follow. I believe the fun of language and poetry began to leave me when I had to struggle over having to do things right to write a poem that would be appreciated. I would never say that it is not necessary to learn grammar and patterns of poetry but wouldnt it be wonderful if we could just play with the language from time to time? Maybe, like our children, we can delight in it and make it work for us to entertain us instead of frustrate us.
You might be happy to know that I have overcome some of my inhibitions. I still stink at writing poetry but you can, on a warm spring day, walk up to our front door and hear the laughter as mommy and the kids sing a song they made up or as we write a poem together one line at a time each person taking the next line. You may hear mommy say something in correction only to have a child singsong a line back that rhymes with the last word mommy said. Then you would hear the tension of the moment dissipate as they all break into deep belly laughter.
If you were a fly on the wall of our 1989 Suburban you might hear a crazy little song that we make up as we drive down the highway when all the radio stations are out of range.
And on that rare romantic occasion when I put pen to paper in an expression of love for my husband, you might see a corny little love poem being penned. Then as the recipient reads it quietly to himself, a tear rolling down both our cheeks, he would lift his head and say, I love it merely because he loves that I tried. It could happen
Leann Richardson
March 31, 2006
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