Poetry Thursday: Why I Love Poetry

Why I love Poetry

By Imelda Maguire (aka GreenishLady)

I love poetry
for the moose, for the fish,
for the terrible beauty,
the golden apples and the silver apples,
for the earthworms singing,
and the dead in their glass-bottom boats,
looking down at us.

I love it for the questions:
What am I going to do
with this one precious life?
And the promises:
I love how it makes me believe again,
and again that I am not alone.

Out there, souls found the words
for the heart’s ache and its joy,
dug them out with their squat pens,
scattered them on the page,
like this season’s first potatoes,
offered them. Offer them still.

I love the friendliness of poetry –
the way the poet expects me to see
what they mean. Like a friend would.
I love the trust in that. I love that
every poem is another hand, reaching,
warming. I love that it slowly softens the wax,
that it soothes.


That's this week's offering for Poetry Thursday, at which we were asked to say (in 153 words or less) why we love poetry. These are today's reasons. The ones that came to the top of my head - and excluding the title (because I am a good and co-operative person), my word-count is actually 153 words! Go and find out why other people love poetry HERE.

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A few hours later, I realise I meant to mention the list of poets referred to in the poem. They are Elizabeth Bishop, WB Yeats, Leland Bardwell, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney and Primo Levi. I've never borrowed so freely before. Fun!

Poetry Thursday - A borrowed Line

This week at Poetry Thursday we've been lending and borrowing lines from one another's poems. I've extracted a line that is meaningful particularly this week, and for the first time, plan to just start a poem right here, and post it within the ten minutes I have to spare.

Thoughts of you keep sleep away

They sit on the side of my bed, poking at me,
reminding me, and laughing, saying
Remember? Remember?

They ask questions for which I have no answer:
Why? When did the slide begin? What can I say now?

And if sleep comes, she brings dreams of you:
Your face cold, and sometimes your back as you walk away.
Once your hand reaching out to me, only to be drawn back.

Now, new memories. This week's pictures. A tear in your eye,
Your hand reaching, and one last embrace. Your face.


[I borrowed the line from Rethabile. You can read all the other poems this week by going to Poetry Thursday HERE]

Blogiversary! New day, New year !

It's a year today since I started my blog in order to follow along with 100 others as we worked The Artist's Way. What a year it's been!

I've been away over Christmas and the New year, and stayed away a little longer than I'd intended, and then, strangely, when I got home, the impulse to post wasn't there. There didn't seem to be anything to say. I'm gone into a little cocoon of no writing, no blogging, a hibernation-of-sorts. BUT I am aware of the date. I am aware of the wonderful community I fell into this time last year, and the marvellous , amazing, inspiring sharing I've been priviliged to participate in during that year.

I want to thank all the bloggers who have come by here during the year, and to say I'll be back. I will be back!