Poetry

Here is another great poem about Poetry that I wanted to post in response to our previous conversation about poetry. I think that this one would be a great poem to use with students when talking about why there is such a disliking amongst readers. I have used other poems which are written on the subject of poetry in the classroom, but I had never come across this one. I think it is amazing and touching. I think along with Billy Collins and Marianne Moore, this could serve as a great way to discuss poetry. Maybe this will help us get started on our Mother Poems. :)

Poetry

By Nikki Giovanni

poetry is motion graceful
as a fawn
gentle as a teardrop
strong like the eye
finding peace in a crowded room
we poets tend to think
our words are golden
though emotion speaks too
loudly to be defined
by silence
sometimes after midnight or just before
the dawn
we sit typewriter in hand
pulling loneliness around us
forgetting our lovers or children
who are sleeping
ignoring the weary wariness
of our own logic
to compsoe a poem
no one understands it
it never says "love me" for poets are
beyond love
it never says "accept me" for poems seke not
acceptance but controversy
it only says "i am" and therefore
i concede that you are too

a poem is pure energy
horizontally contained
between the mind
of the poet and the ear of the reader
if it does not sing discard the ear
for poetry is song
if it does not deligh discard
the heart for poetry is joy
if it does not inform then close
off the brain for it is dead
if it cannot heed the insistent message
that life is precious

which is all we poets
wrapped in our loneliness
are trying to say