Poetry to me

Time goes by so fast. It's something of a cliche, but it's also true. Days turn into weeks. Months turn into years. Children grow up. You turn your back for a second, and then you find that life has sprinted right by you. It's rather sad really. But that's the reality.

Even when you just focus on a single day, the number of things that need to get done means that those 24 hours can seem like a whirlwind of activity, followed by fatigue and exhaustion.

Even vacation days, strangely enough, can feel like this. Instead of being able to sit back and smell the salty sea air, you find yourself rushing from one activity to the next, from one restaurant or bar or bazaar stall to another, until night falls, you return to your room, and drift off to sleep.

There's that desire to find a way to slow down time for a bit, to allow you to catch your breath and find your head, before you plow into the next thing that needs to be done. That's what writing poetry does for me.

The great thing is that poetry doesn't need to be long. You can write stanza after stanza if you wish to, of course, but a poem isn't necessarily better because there is more of it. Instead, you have short poems that pack the emotional wallop of something longer. And you have haiku whose few lines can force you to stop and think, and maybe appreciate.

I found that by writing a short poem or haiku on a regular basis, this forced me to similarly stop and think. It made my mind go back over the previous day or other recent period of time, to see if there was something there that had captured my attention, and that maybe could be communicated through poetry.

And then there is the process of sitting in front of a blank space, choosing the words which would hopefully allow that particular meaning to come through unimpeded.

Finally, there is the satisfaction of having created something. It might not be stellar or amazing. It might just be okay or not even. But it is something that is yours. Something that your mind produced. It just makes you feel a little bit better than you were before.

So that's why this blog is here. I'll see if I can make writing poetry something more constant in my life. Given the stress and rush of day to day life, I'm sure even a few pocket moments of peace here and there would be helpful.

I hope you find something helpful for yourself on this site, or at least a little interesting. Thank you for visiting.