Poetry Before Bed

2-17-10

When I was a kid, I loved poetry.  I loved writing it; I loved reading it.  Now it just gives me a headache.  I write quite a few poems… I wouldn’t call myself a poet or anything, but I might write one or two a month.  Anyway, back then poetry was easy.  That’s because the poetry books that were available to me were things like Where the Sidewalk ends.  Great book of children’s poems.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s a great children’s book.  The poems are funny, but more importantly easy to understand.  Poems were easy to write back then as well.  Maybe that’s because I didn’t think so much about it and just wrote it.

Now, things are more complicated.  Maybe it’s because I understand poetry a little more.  I understand that there are rules and guide lines that have to be followed to some extent.  So thanks so all the creative writing classes and camps, I’m now too critical.  Anything I write comes off cheesy or just plain stupid.  Opening a poetry book is the same way.  Although, I still love reading them.  I especially like Poe and Emily Dickinson, but sometimes my head starts spinning as I try to comprehend their works.  Once I understand it though, I love it.

Tonight while I was reading in the bathtub I found a new poet that I absolutely love.  Lewis Carroll.  Grant it, a good chunk is still children’s poems, but I think his work is just beautiful.  It sends my head spinning as well, but not because I can’t understand it.  It’s because I come up with lots of different ways of understanding it.  Does that make sense?  Each word is put in its place with a definite purpose, which I guess is really the point, isn’t it?  Anyway, I’ve decided that it might not be best to keep reading that book so late at night.  It fills my head with too many thoughts, and then I’ll never get to sleep.