If there is a word that describes best what
poetry is, I would say intimate.

Is poetry intimate?

Are not all works of poetry?

Or are they just collections of words laid on paper in nice organized ways, to make them look professional,
as if they make sense?

I would hope we as poets, writers, or those who think they make literary sense would believe the former.

As we let our minds spill over onto paper words that flow, flow from the heart, or flow from some deep secluded place within our soul.

We scribble on scratch paper random thoughts, things that make no sense, just so we can remember what we were thinking in that fleeting feeble moment, only to throw it in some over stuffed drawer to find some months later, and then possibly throw back in.

I would say yes, this is intimate, revealing our most vulnerable feelings of how and where the next valuable and honest word will show its worth.

What greater joy could one experience, than to have an affect on a persons life through words? Words that have emerged from the deep recesses of our mind, body and soul as if we had laid open our life for all to see, exposed our self to the world, as couriers of all things good or bad.

Delivering hope and joy, sadness and pain, and answers to some. We as poets splay out onto paper all of the things that reside in all of us, only in that organized, unorganized way that some can understand.

Poetry belongs to all who read it and translate these words into any one of a thousand different meanings.

Are we poets? I can not say for certainty. Or are we just another Joe who shows their life in words written in script in hopes someone will find them?

I Do Not Know!

http://www.charlesdennispoetry.netne.net

© 2009 Charles Dennis