Why poetry? It's how we deal with the blob

This morning my son asked me why I write poetry.

I wasn’t actually aware that Keats (yes, I named my son after the Romantic poet) even knew I wrote poetry, or had much of a sense of what poetry is. He’s six, so he’s exposed to more poetry than he will be as he grows older — Dr. Seuss and other picture books, the little songs we sing.

I was surprised to be asked this question, and gratified, too. He sees me living and moving through a slightly separate world than his own. I’m not sure if I thought of my own mother in terms outside of myself at this age, even though I saw her in her nurse’s uniform every night as she walked out the door to care for patients in the cardiac unit.

It’s good to be seen by the people who love us.

It’s hard to answer this question for someone so young, and I had to take a moment to think of what I wanted to say.

“Remember that dream you had the other day?” I asked him.

He had told me about a dream where he was in a building and a big blob was taking it over, inflating into the hallways and bulging out of doors and windows.

“You thought about that for a long time,” I reminded him. “You wondered what the blob was and how it got there.”

He remembered. The dream both scared and fascinated him, and it clearly stuck with him. He asked me about it more than once. Where did the blob come from? Would it come back to another dream?

My poetry is just a written version of his thoughts about the blob, I explained. Sometimes our thoughts take over, and we work hard to make sense of them. For me, the words that I attach to this process are not rooted in regular syntax. I don’t think about big truths in grammatical sentences, and neither does he. Instead, words and images come, and I find myself trying to make connections.

What I said to him simplified this idea a bit.

“I write poetry because my thoughts are too big for regular words,” I said.

He nodded. He knew just what I meant and was satisfied.

A Writer's Spirit Prompt #9

Today, try to unlock a different part of the creative mind by engaging in a type of imaginative play that is different from your norm. If, like me, you tend to create only with words, you might consider trying to execute a drawing—a self-portrait, perhaps, or a spring blossom. You might also try singing or playing music, or attempting a craft, like paper-making or wire sculpture. Whatever you try, give it an honest but non-judgmental attempt, just to see how far you can take this other medium. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself—or maybe you won’t, but you’ll at least explore another wrinkle in your capacious, inventive brain.

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I’m offering contemplative prompts for poets all through April, National Poetry Month. If you subscribe to Better View of the Moon, you never need to miss one.

A Writer's Spirit Prompt #4

Most writers have habits of mind or practice, and some of these habits can rise to the level of ritual. But sometimes these behaviors are not even conscious ones. We find ourselves writing in certain ways, with certain tools, at certain times of day. Today’s prompt asks you to describe your writer self in your most descriptive terms, as if you are observing yourself from a distance (e.g., “When Karen writes, she uses the bluest pen, with bright thick ink that globs when she stops”).

This is a writing prompt, but do not feel pressured to make a poem from it. You’re just an anthropologist, recording the habits of the locals—or rather, one local: yourself. If something comes of this, go with it.

Looking ahead, tomorrow’s prompt will ask you to think of ways to disrupt your habit—so be as faithful a recorder as you can today, and if you can’t think of anything you typically or “always” do, make something up. Imagine your ideal conditions.