the ritual

and I ask all of you

of this glittering mosaic.

what big bad thing

hurt you into poetry?

Reviews

[emmajoy]

I had six older siblings, parents who loved books, I pretended to read anything. everything once I could put my right index under a line of words and make belive a story! Was pre.school and from the sound of it, jsut a little precocious, that or a copy.cat! Loved music and dancing too, think the meter of nursery rhymes hit me first;, then poetry itself as sisters or brothers wandered around, reciting cos they were going to be tested the following day or whenever. A poem is most definitely a dance of words, don't you think. Then, real school and being read to, by being encouraged to listen and enjoy.. Then a love of words that's never left me, However, so wish the great poets i discovered in my early days had influenced me more! There again, times since. emotional, personal or otherwise have released a flood of words. Cathartic, yes; inhibitions ignored; imagination freed to be whatever..

Why can't I pluck such special words out of the air as you do, dana! Sadly, poetry has never inspired me to write briefly, forgive, please.

[h d e rushin]

the love of words is always the central theme dearest emmajoy. A neuromuscular dance you have in your head by nothing more than the exacting requirements for rhythm and punctilious story telling (and the belief that magic happens just as the magician intended. "Imagination has to be freed" as you have suggested my friend. Which also means that imagination was always a bird and that it was never, ever hatched out of no-where. Your poems are always soaring, always loose in the air of wonder. Potent with the loot of emotion. If you can be taught to do this just by love then you have lifted the veil to the virtue that has closed off most of this world....thank you my friend...we are burying many from the virus where I live....stay safe....dana

[emmajoy]

Your words to me, of me, are so generous, dear friend. Thank you.

Bur, but here and now - forgive me, more vitally, is the tragedy of your last words. How evil this damned virus.. how dare it strike down people wherever, whatever, however, whoever! I am so very sad and sorry, dana.. truly.

Take great care, please. Keep safe as safe you can be. Love and prayers. Em

[Moonie]

Haha, I have an interesting tale for that. I went to a catholic school as a kid (probably one of the reasons why I'm an atheist now) and I was your classic run-of-the-mill nerd. So one day, one of nuns taunted me that I had no creativity, and my left side of the brain that governs logic as in Science and Mathematics was developed, but the right side which governs creativity had not. That made me so infuriated (because I wasn't used to being called dumb) that I lied that I wrote poetry. And she said she'd like to see them. So I went home, wrote 6 arbitrary poems, my mind tackling it as if it was my homework and made her read them the next day. She fell for it, and that made me want to try writing more. :)))
Whatever I wrote for the next few years was crap, but I was proud of it because I had no idea about good writing. Then I made an account on this site some 6 years back, and I think I've improved immensely but still have a long way to go to be honest. I still remember how angry I used to get whenever someone wrote a bad review, and now I want more criticism and suggestions for my poems so I can grow.

I would love to hear your story too, and I love how personal this poem feels. It straight up grabs the reader and demands them to look back at where they started. Always a pleasure to read your poetry! :)))

[h d e rushin]

"Even bad poems are sincere" Oscar Wilde said. So I have to start my journey with sincerity, my own and that of the world around me. There is a nicety about poetry writing, a subtle euphemism for what Hart Crane decided was "too effete for a person who wants from this world power". I started very, very young writing poems because it was the only habit a nerd like me (and you it seems lol) could rightfully have that could be both agreeable and virtuous all at once. I wrote poems about the dark and the dusk and how my rebellion for both was just and natural. Loss and heartbreak was too much like black magic for my youthful receptors I guess. And I am astounded by how many started writing poetry from this same substance....."My lover left me. My lover is missed. My lover wont return.".All just and honorably potent reasons I would suggest, just too abstract for an earthworm like myself to turn into fable. I am always interested in the responses to this poem....Every one of us has a different habit....thanks for your insight my friend...dana

[Ken Simm.]

I am going to stop reviewing your poetry Dana. * You are quite simply beyond me.
If you are interested poetry for me started with my first real love affair many, many moons ago. Yep its that cheesy.


* Not really.

[h d e rushin]

we humans portion out our sentiments Ken, starting at an early age. Love is both fortune and inheritance, I think. And it strikes me as interesting that most poets start there...No different than Shakespear or Wordsworth who grew old writing love sonnets, they too began by falling in love..or writing about falling in love...Thanks my friend for being the adventurist among us who marvel (and thus marvel us) with the omen of natures gifts and the power of that prophetic significance...No one else has that gift my friend.....thanks.....dana

[Coyote Poetry]

I loved poetry in 4th grade. Starting writing for school news papers. Later in life. Poetry and story since 1974. Some of us need to release to paper. How are you dear Poet? Be careful and be safe.
Coyote

[h d e rushin]

I am well my friend....but dodging the virus thank you. 4th grade? At an age when the rest of us, too afraid to ask the teacher to use the bathroom? lol./ It's a wonderful journey that just varies in distance I suppose...Stay safe my friend...A killer is on the loose....dana

[Coyote Poetry]

I know dear Dana. My mother lived on Hereford street in Detroit. Many good people are gone. I pray for better days. Be careful and be safe dear Dana.

[Travis Gibson (poetic h..]

Oh, so personal lol... It was most certainly my childhood, then love grabbed my hand and helped me grow out of it.

[h d e rushin]

it takes a lot Travis, a worship, a loving hand; an invocation. And sometimes just an invitation. But something always functions as the catalyst that makes a person "want" poetry as an inurement or as Baraka use to say "as an alternative to violence". Thank you my friend for finding this one....dana

[Travis Gibson (poetic heroics)]

An alternative to violence indeed, even if not right away. lol and I glad this one found me. These types of pieces really make you realign with whats important to you as a writer. Thank you.

[Einstein Noodle]

oh my ... you ask a lot young lady ... and your insight is most assuredly spot on as always .. its the pain that does it ... i have always thought of it as a river .. so much more wide, deep and fast moving than that of joy ... it rolls us over rock and log .. bumps us up against one another .. and for each .. finally an eddy that holds us long enough to capture our wit .. find a spot and climb out .. finding there all along the shore line thousands more who have been cheering for those in the water still ... trying to help as best we can ... but the river has its own course ... we all just best lay back and ride until the eddy pulls us in ... it was the loss of my wife at a very young age ... and then again years later a break up that put the cap on it ... things get too strong to hold in .. they have to burst forth .. thanks for asking Ms.Rushin
now how 'bout you??? ;)
E.
ps. i love the way you put ... "...this glittering mosaic" ... showing your brilliance once again eh!? :)))

[h d e rushin]

Naomi Madgett use to always say of growing up that she was always writing things that happened to her down. Good, bad, happy, theoretical, inventive....everything. I speak for my self when I say that poetry is more compulsory than reflexive, since poetry is something that happens contrary to sound judgment or will..."things get too strong to hold in". I agree. But the temptation is to safeguard those things, and in all likelihood, in the bubble of worship and justification, which a poem is. Loosing someone close could be the enzyme activator just as finding someone to fall in love with can be. But perhaps i'm giving poetry too much credit. Perhaps poetry is what humans do as an invention of process or duty like the old country folk who made their own butter out of need, not out of taste. Thank you my dear friend for you insight....stay safe....dana

[Einstein Noodle]

compulsory ... reflexive .. such powerful words! do you really think it is contrary to sound judgement?? can you tell me in what ways?? on the surface my initial response is that it makes all the sense in the world ;)))

[h d e rushin]

What I mean is that the good part of poetry or art, for that matter, is also the bad part of it; the recognition of something dark that we didn't expect to be there. Like an Ohara love poem perhaps or Dickinson never wanting to be pretty while writing so emotionally pretty lines. Sound judgment was me overhearing a conversation between two women coming out of Dollar Tree after supposedly being short changed by the cashier. "I should have hit her upside her head" the one woman said. And i'm thinking, damn! is that sound judgment? Well for her it, at the time,it was. So judgment, whether sound or otherwise, is situational I guess. Here in the Café where so many are writing poetry, whether good or bad, style often collides with intention. Which is the hardest part (I think) of exiting a poem once you've entered into writing one. and I would argue that heartsickness requires as little judgment as it does prognosis. We are crazy to write poems. Or reckless. But either way, we are afraid of being wrong about doing it......dana

[Einstein Noodle]

yes .. the good bad and ugly ;) thanks for clearing up my fog ... reckless to be sure .. if honest, in writing, we make ourselves very vulnerable ..i like Richards take on form and/or style ... and agree with you that sometimes our poetry conflicts with the form especially ... an easy example might be haiku and senryu ... both distinct and fit for certain expressions and not others ... i will have to consider the afraid of being wrong about doing it ... i don't think i have consciously felt that .. stimulating thoughts and conversation dana ...

[redzone]

Sorry Dana, it wasn’t a big hurt that got me writing poetry, but 💕 love.... she was the red haired beauty and she stole my heart... the big hurt came a few years later.... ironically I still write her poetry even 50 years later... how’s that for a mosaic piece...

[h d e rushin]

then it was magic redzone; since magic takes about 50 years of un-conjuring to figure out how the rabbit came out of the hat or how the dove just appeared out of no-where.. But what a wonderfully, beautiful story that is....dana

[Robert Trakofler]

that was a laugh out loud coffee spit out the nose poem! the answer is i was an extremely difficult birth

[h d e rushin]

no fair Bad..All births are difficult. They you realized the world kinda sucks most of the time. But the inverse of birth is poetry isn't it? Since they temp life but justify death....Thanks my friend....dana

[Robert Trakofler]

damn I just realised i have no birth marks:( I guess i was wrong

[jacob erin-cilberto]

my answer, too many to name here.
but the very first poem i wrote?
Came from a relationship that had ended...i guess i sound like a country song, eh?

[h d e rushin]

I think Jacob loss is far too intricate an explanation to get to where you are now. But having honed one's teeth in disappointment helps to "flatten the curve" of neglect I suspect...lol. I've been there my friend...too often to mention, in fact....thanks brother....dana