So yesterday authors, writers, readers, and word-lovers alike in Britain and elsewhere, celebrated #NationalPoetryDay. The day of celebration was founded in 1994, under the premise that writers of poetry in the UK deserved more recognition. It's usually celebrated on the first or second Thursday in October, and though I'm a couple days late writing about it (it was Oct. 8 this year), I thought my fellow State-siders might appreciate a few words on the subject of poetry. I was made aware of it via my Twitter timeline: where JK Rowling tweeted an image of one of her favorite poems, and others on my timeline showcased their own original poetry.
In the past I haven't been the biggest reader of poetry – I remember once saying in a class that poetry, for me, lives best being embodied. This reference was to performance poetry, spoken word, and its more competitive sibling slam poetry. When I think about my own life it's no surprise I thought this: I'm a Philadelphian, and Philadelphia is the mother of trail-blazed spoken-word poetry. When I first began writing poetry, it wasn't too long before I found myself on stage. Some of my favorite poets are Philadelphia's finest: Sonia Sanchez, Lyrispect, Just Greg, Denice Frohman, Yolanda Wisher, to name a few. And in fact I've been taught at one point or another by all of them (Sonia Sanchez is, in a way, my poetry grand-mother-mentor). A lot of their work is stage-performance-heavy - very embodied. I once mistook their presence on stage to mean that poetry needn't live on the page at all. In past two years, however, I have begun to see that poetry can be just as powerful on the page.
I have made a conscious effort to pickup a poetry collection every couple of months and read it, and poetry is not easy to read. You can't do it passively, or else you'll be drained. My first ever bought poetry collection was Black Girl Mansion by Angel Nafis, which I soaked up while on the road to Memphis, TN for a life-changing experience. Since then my tradition has been to pickup a poetry collection and take it with me when I'm doing longer travel trips. I've taken ones to Ghana and London (I picked up an additional collection during my London stay). This past Summer I cracked open a collection I received Senior year of high school. In a couple weeks I will be opening Under A Soprano Sky by Sonia Sanchez (who is in a way my poetry grandmother/mentor). So here's to all of the poems that keep us up in the day and ease of us to sleep at night, to all the poems that said what we were only able to feel, to the poems we know like the back of our hands. I'm thankful for them. And in the spirit of sharing I'd like to share an original prose piece (originally published on my personal blog) I penned this summer called Here On Earth:
Isn’t Earth both Heaven & Hell? A living trial & error?
Fragments of Heaven & Hell at their most complete… are here, on this Earth.
These glimpses,
because of our senses,
because our bodies are strapped together,
we take in as finite, whole, structures;
but when we scatter away in the dust,
or shed beneath the ground, we go in pieces - tiny pieces - with tiny views.
Fragments.
Shards of Heaven & Hell will become clearly just that.
And we will drift through them, a little faster than we’ve known on Earth: for here we can pretend a landscape bends at our will,
that the tree is actually still.
When we’re just passing by.
One day we will realize just how lucky we are to be moving so slowly,
so alive, so temporary,
so human
So who are your favorite poets? Favorite poems? Do tell! If you're a writer, what things have you been needing to say? Consider writing one for #NationalPoetryDay, and see what happens.
