And now for our prompt (optional, as always). The Latin phrase ars poetica means “the art of poetry.” It’s been a tradition going all the way back to Horace for poets to write poems that lay out – whether explicitly or obliquely – some statement about why the poet writes, or what they think poetry is. Here’s a very recent example, another that I had to study in school, and a very long, witty ars poetica by Alexander Pope. Today, we challenge you to write your own ars poetica, giving the reader some insight into what keeps you writing poetry, or what you think poetry should do.
Why Poetry?
Because the ego needs expression
and audience
Because I’ve been called
an empath
as if its’s a communicable disease
Because even though my mother was
part shadow, mostly sun,
the scorch marks drew ghazals
and Sufi songs
temple bells and tongs
from sheathes so deep,
whispers turned petrichor
want’s wet kisses
for a dried-up world
cannot be written in fiction
Meera Bai chose poison
over a ban on her poetry
and “Kabir says this:
just throw away all thoughts of imaginary
things,
and stand firm in that which you are.”*
Turn, says my astrologer friend,
herself a storyteller,
Don’t bang your head against the relentless wall.
Pivot.
See! A whole blue sky, some clouds,
blades of grass
heel, toe, heel, toe, heal
there…
that’s poetry.
*Quote from Kabir’s translated poem, I Said To The Wanting-Creature Inside Me
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