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My interest in
writing poetry began in high school and continued into college, although
nothing I produced then was particularly worth reading. After college, in the
1970s, I wrote poems with greater intent and even published a few. But after
that decade other interests, activities, and life in general made for about a
thirty-year hiatus. I didn’t take up writing poems with any real passion again
until after I retired in 2006.
Nowadays I write
for my own pleasure, and I share my work with family and friends. My poems tend
to be either autobiographical or responsive to nature—or both. I don’t consider
myself a nature poet, but I have always responded to the passing seasons, flora
and fauna, and weather phenomena. Perhaps because I also work in the visual
arts, mainly as a painter, I try to create visual images with words. I have
persisted in a lifelong fascination with impressionistic and expressionistic
free verse, inspired by the likes of Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, and many,
many other Modern poets. If there is one thread, however slender, that unites at
least some of my poems now, it is reflection on aging, keenly felt in
particular since my cancer diagnosis in April 2015.
Is writing poems
a form of therapy? Certainly. What artistic expression is not? But writing, at
least for me, is always more than that. It is the creation of art, which in
itself is intensely fulfilling. I suspect it’s that way for most poets, who,
when it comes down to it, seldom write poetry as their livelihood. Many, in fact,
never get published or, like Emily Dickenson, are published extensively only
after their death. And fame? Most find little within their lifetime, although
some achieve it later. Sylvia Plath, for example, became really well known only
after her death.
Thanks to the
ease, convenience, and low cost of the Nook on-demand publishing platform, I’ve
put together a couple of collections of poems in recent months. Published
privately and never intended for sale, these volumes are gifts for family and
friends. (The cover of the first one is pictured above.) Having worked in
publishing and possessing an inclination for writing and design are helpful but
not essential to this type of project.
In sum, the
advice I’d give to anyone who is curious about writing, whether poems or some
other form, is simply to do it. Ultimately, the intended beneficiary is the
writer. If readers also benefit in some way, so much the better.
Note: This
commentary is cross-posted on two blogs: Arts in View (http://artsinview.blogspot.com) and
Living With…A Cancer Journal (http://livingwithcancerjournal.blogspot.com).
