That's So Poetic!

Over the course of my five-month "Winter of Flux," my wife Tan has sent me scores of articles to look at on-line - on entrepreneurship, writing, growing old, education, and even this interesting article that made me think of Joseph Conrad and the boundless sea.  It's one of the ways we've kept in touch, sharing inspiration ... 

The Poetry of the Winter of Flux

One of the articles that resonated with me the most was a bombastic "defense" and praise of poetry (I didn't know poetry needed to be defended but I'm glad someone has its back). 

The writer, Amy King, expressed herself beautifully, championing the great freedom and flux of poetry, and unshackling from it the constant meta-drive (in American society especially) that something has to be commercially successful to be considered viable or even important.



I love so much of what this article has to say, like the idea of "just knowing":

"Further, poets on the edge, the ones not gunning for academic standing via simulated avant-garde status, perform a kind of exercise in alchemical fecundity for which there is no precedent—they are not afraid of the impossible, bringing together and cobbling the unexpected. These moments either shock us into a new awareness or reveal something we’ve only glimpsed or felt was possible. You know that moment when an observer says, “That’s so poetic!” No guidelines or rules can dictate exactly when those moments occur, but you know them when you see them; it requires no training to know when your entire being has been surprised and moved."

And how synchronicitous for me to be writing about this subject in the city in which I currently find myself (Portland, Maine), as I remember fondly the poetry slam I attended years ago, at some forgotten venue in the Longfellow Square area.

Even today, poetry is alive and well in Portland.

Perhaps it's simply enough to ingest the joy that King has found in poetry, but I also rather like the idea of applying it to my five-month "Winter of Flux" which is now just about to end with a flight next week back to Thailand.

It would be understandable to bemoan what has happened to us and scream to the heavens.  In my case, I lost a job that I thought I had in hand in the deserts of the Middle East, and found myself in a great between state, with a lot of almosts and perhaps.  

The Great Spoken Word Poet Sarah Kay 

(via YouTube-Ted Talks)

But we often are how we choose to perceive ourselves, and what I perceive is that I was given the precious gift of a five-month poetic journey, not commercially viable in any respect, but rich in emotion, experience, and constant connection with family, friends, and the places I know well, from the Mid-Atlantic to New England.  Coming out of this, I feel suffused with enthusiasm for what I could and should be doing in this wide world of ours.

That's So Poetic!