For many of us, the words poetry and poem conjure up painful memories of high school English teachers trying desperately to get us to thee and thou our way through Shakespeare’s sonnets and arrive at some kind of understanding of what the Bard was getting at. Personally, I had always thought poetry was a bit beyond me. I hardly ever knew what a poet was trying to say, and for the love of everything could not figure out why they couldn’t just bloody well say what they wanted to say.

Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy

-from “Sonnet 114” by William Shakespeare

Whatever, Shakespeare.

Sometime in college, however, it was pointed out to me that perhaps that was the problem. Why must we figure out what the poet is “trying” to say? What if we just listened to the words, the shape of them, the sound they make, the order in which they appear on the page? What if we just took the poem on it’s face and saw it for what it was? A gathering together of words that evoke an image or a feeling, even if it’s not the image or the feeling that the poet might have intended or had in mind when she was writing. It was like someone switched on a light. I suddenly “got” poetry.

Mind was a prison, ruby lined
in its lipstick noir—

-from “Everyone in Me is a Bird” by Melissa Studdard,

I have become a lover of poetry. I read poetry every day, thanks to poets.org and their fantastic Poem-A-Day email. I even buy books of poetry in the bookstore, on purpose. I have found poetry to be like mental yoga. When the world is a flaming pile of horse sh*t (which, let’s be honest, is pretty much always these days), reading a poem brings my brain a sense of calm. I turn off whatever noise is happening around me and I zero my attention in on a few lines and I read them slowly. I even backtrack and read lines over to make sure I’ve gotten the full flavor before I move on. I read the whole poem again. Repeat asana.

Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.

-from “Dream Song 1” by John Berryman

I have a folder in my email inbox where I put the poems that I really love. I’ll forward them to friends I think might enjoy them.

I also have the the Poetry Foundation‘s poetry app. This delightful app puts hundreds of poems at your fingertips, and is a great way to spend time in line at the grocery store. Bonus: Someone will see you staring at your phone and assume you’re doing something mundane and mindless, when, in fact, you’re reading the sublime lines of William Blake. Take that, Judgey McJudgesalot.

in love. I shout with the rough calculus
of walking. Just let me find my way back,
let me move like a tide come in.

-“The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.“ by Donika Kelly

Perhaps the best part of the poetry app is the spin feature. Click the “spin” button and you’ll land on a random pairing of topics (Joy & Life, Passion & Youth, Boredom & Family, etc.) and it will give you a list of poems on that topic. You can then slide the top half and the bottom half to make different combos and see what poems come up (Joy & Youth, Boredom & Life, etc.). I like to use it as a kind of Magic Eight Ball. Think of a question you want to know the answer to, keep it in your mind as you hit the spin button, and the first poem in the list will have the answer to your question! Of course, if you don’t like that answer, or if the answer is unclear, just move down the list. Fate is nothing if not reasonable.

what was once lost
now leaps before you.

-from “Why Whales are Back in New York City” by Rajiv Mohabir

The point is, friends and lovers, that poetry is not something to be afraid of or confused by. Poetry is experience distilled down into its essence. It is a combination of words chosen with precision and care to make an image in your mind, or a feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, or maybe a feeling you can put all five fingers on and you’d rather not think about that right now so you move on to another one. Poetry is a quiet moment with your mind, in which you can take a break, stretch, breathe.

What is known as love, what can become 
the heart’s food stored away for some future
Famine

-from “May Perpetual Light Shine” by Patricia Spears Jones