My intent in writing poetry is to be authentic and give permission for others to be authentic. Poetry is a language of honest expression. If you need a happy booster, I recommend reading or watching comedy. There are enough programs and books out there to help you laugh. I recommend Ken Davis, Rick Mercer, Tim Hawkins, MASH, Three's Company to name a few.
That being said, some poetry can be fun, joyful and comedic... but that is not the sole purpose and definitely not the heart of the art form.
Here are some thoughts from smarter, wiser, more well known poets than I.
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.'
William Wordsworth
'A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightening five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.'
Randall Jarrell
'Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.'
Carl Sandburg
'Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own.'
Dylan Thomas
'I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.'
Robert Frost
'Poetry is, at bottom, a criticism of life.'
Matthew Arnold
'I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.'
A. E. Housman
If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?
Emily Dickinson
Don’t write love poems when you’re in love. Write them when you’re not in love.
Richard Hugo
Mark Lowry says "If David had access to Prozac, we wouldn't have the Psalms". The whole bible is filled with Poetry that is raw, real and rough. I am not saying that the bible gave me permission to write sad poetry, but I am in good company when I read the poetry that fills those pages. So if generations of bible translators and theologians didn't take out the sad poetry in the bible... what right do I have to bury my feelings?
This poetry blog isn't high traffic and I am okay with that. But it is... because I want to write the real, raw and rough stuff that is in my brain. Poetry is the only way I have to get it out. I refuse to go on medication again to deal with the darkness that is part of my soul. Poetry is my prozac.
So why do I publish it if it is only going to make others sad? I don't publish to make anyone sad. I publish so that I can communicate that being sad is okay. If that is what is in you, then let it come out. So what if no one wants to read it. Don't hide the pain, Don't hide the darkness.
There are still a lot of poems that I hide. I just felt it necessary to say that. So even if part of me remains hidden, it still gets written. That is the important part.
You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
