Back to Poetry

No, I'm not doing anything crazy like giving up on my novel just to write poetry. Even I know that poetry is the fast train to poor unless you're a college professor or a trust fund baby. But I was thinking about it the other day, and I realized that I really miss poetry.

Ever since I can remember, I was writing poetry. Especially when it came to love :P. I have a whole book of bad poetry written for old boyfriends and crushes back in middle school and high school. God, I think I even went so far as to give some it to some of those guys. And, sadly, there were some boys in college too. Ugh. How embarrassing. But also, how awesome. I know that none of my poetry has really been mind-blowing, but that's partly because when I was writing poetry, I hadn't really been through anything mind-blowing. I was a virgin. I had never truly been hurt or wronged. Needless to say, that naivete is gone now, and I have had more experience with love, life and people in general.

I wonder if my poetry would be any good written from this perspective? The now me? It can't hurt to start writing and see what happens. At the very least, it will help me get out some aggressions or stress or feelings bottled up too deep inside. It could be therapeutic.

This week, in honor of my rekindling love for poetry, I thought I would share some of my favorites. Today's poem is by Deborah Garrison, an American Poet of my heart, who is also the Knopf poetry editor.

Happily Married

Almost home
on the longest day of the year,
I saw two birds on a telephone wire:
two beaks, two sharp-peaked ruffs,
two tails that stuck down stiff
like two closed fans
all matched up neatly,
and against the faintly
yellow pre-dusk sky
the birds and the wire
were all one color,
a fading black
or darkening gray.

Sometimes the smallest thing
brings harmony in
through the eye.
Or was it that I
on that particular day
had harmony to bring to what I saw?
That I'd even looked up
seemed a piece of marital
good luck, and that they didn't
move as I passed by--

I wondered how long in fact
they'd sit that way.