Thoughts upon poetry

In her essay Poetry is not a luxury, Audre Lorde says, "The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives."

Writing helps us to gaze upon life. As writers we train the microscope of the senses over a particular aspect of life and by doing so we hope to bring greater understanding of life as we live it. Unlike the novelists amongst us, poets do not have a lot of time to devote to our task. As poets we write in the snatches of time available to us in our busy, hectic lives. Whenever we write, we write in the hope that the poetry we create has some resonance with others.

I believe that ideas gleaned from our reading or listening to other writers, philosophers, historians, scientists, feminists, social activists etc. will help us to scrutinize our lives with the aid of a stronger beam of light and will inform our understanding of life so that what we produce has greater meaning.

For me Gwendolyn Brooks poem We Real Cool is an example of just that

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/17315

Claire O'Mahony