An invitation to be present, to make shared meaning, and to get moving
Swansea, Wales I understand that most people who read this blog don't read poetry. It's foreign to most of you, in the way that plants that grow on the other side of the planet are foreign. It's so far outside your awareness as to seem irrelevant to your lives. But when it's outside my awareness for too long, I get antsy. Poetry helps me settle into all of myself. Maybe if you give it another chance, it can help you, too. Here's why I think "more poetry is needed": Poetry grounds meaning in the senses. It uses sight and sound not just as containers for meaning, but as part of how meaning is made. In poetry, words point you toward lived experience, rhythms get under your skin, and the way the words look on the page changes how you hear them and what you imagine when you do. It's as if the function of poetry is to say "There is no meaning outside the way you live your life. Presence is what counts." Poetry only makes sense when ...