Advice from one Poet to himself.

[Joe Mc]

Words are the last part
Of being a poet / poem
They come like candles
On top of a cake

Admittedly some candles
Shine brighter than others
Variations, varieties they
Are many

But poets are born to
Be poets
And poetriness is a thing
That you arrive in the world
With
In your spiritual DNA
An attitude, a path
A way of living

Sometimes a way
Of surviving the
Inflections and main
Discourses of humanities
Story here on earth.

So be a poet
Find out what it means
Be who you are.

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[ameliorate]

Thanks Joe.

That got me thinking about what it is to be a poet. (I occasionally pen free verse poems.)

What I love about it is that, unlike writing a story - where the whole vocabulary gamut is available to freely indulge in at length, poetry is more purely of an emotional expression and benefits from the intensity of especially chosen precise words that encapsulate those feelings. It is this art of selecting the right jewel (your 'candles') to brightly shine its ability to illuminate the inner state.

Of course, too, there is the aesthetic eye which reaches out to share the joy, the beauty or other, darker feelings that become lighter through being penned.

[Joe Mc]

Hi, I've read some of your poems here and they are really lovely, honest, often concise work with deft emotional insights. My poems tend to be a bit more prosaic, but that's ok, like candles from a pound shop lololol !!!

I think I said to myself once a good few years back that novelists are just bad poets. I kind of shocked myself and thought it was kind of a profound thing to say at the time. Of course with the passing of the seasons you see that the appraisal is not entirely true lolol, the arrogance of youth.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the inner state and how poetry can 'illuminate' and speak for that state, underrepresented as it so often is in our outwardly going world.

I've found on my journey here on SF and elsewhere, that poetry can often point ..a finger pointing to the moon... The poetry wants to do that, it wants to capture a feeling however fleeting of something which remains mysterious to us, our own mortality/immortality and situations in the world.

More candles please !!!! lolol....thanks for reading and encouragement. Bless.

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