It’s National Poetry Month!

About ten years ago, I discovered a deeper appreciation for poetry. I’d always liked it – growing up I heard my parents recite poems around the house and studied it in school along with everyone else. But it wasn’t until I started listening to interviews with poets that something clicked. Listening to a poem being read by the person who wrote it transforms poetry to something immediately more relatable. 

The experience that opened this up for me was listening to Naomi Shihab Nye read her poem “Kindness” on an episode of On Being with Krista Tippett. I was driving back to Chicago from my grandmother’s funeral. Listening to Naomi read “Kindness” captivated me and is one of the more powerful listening experiences I’ve had. Time stood still, and I understood in that instant the strength of poetry as a way to observe and interact with life.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to capture moments by freezing them in time so I can relive them. I used to think to myself, “I know I’ll remember this feeling about the freshly-mowed grass,” or “Surely, I won’t forget this celebratory event!” But the reality is, our memories lapse and occurrences that we think will remain eternally molded into our consciousness are lost. That’s where poetry comes in. Poetry holds the present. Poetry keeps a record of time. Poetry is a way to record and immortalize these human experiences.

There was a moment after my second child was born when I was sitting in our sunny bedroom holding the baby, still immersed in that sort of outside-normal-life-and-time feeling. My two year old burst into the room. And I wrote this poem about that moment:

Thumping sound up the stairs,

bursting into the bedroom.

Yellow light streaming through the window

of our room in the trees.

Open the curtain-es, he says.

And already I knew

that soon he would no longer say it this way.

And I made a note to remember

this small transformation

that was already happening.

This poem helped me capture the moment. I know it’s not going to win any awards or get printed anywhere. But it’s a way to record the ephemeral experience of my son’s toddlerhood and how I felt exactly right then.

Poems don’t have to always rhyme, regardless of what you learned in school. Some people like neat and tidy rhyming verse. Others like poems that are just a few words or stanzas. Then there are haikus, the popular Japanese three line poem. (Fun fact: Co-founder Jodi Meusel and I once attended a haiku-writing workshop together..we love haikus!) There are so many different types of poems it would take pages and pages to list them all. There’s blackout poetry that’s created by covering up words in something like a newspaper to make a new text. Or all kinds of found poetry like a shopping list or a short note rearranged like a word collage – anything can be a poem if you broaden your mindset.

And if you think you don’t like poetry, perhaps you haven’t found the right poet or type of poetry. It’s like reading…anyone who says they don’t like reading just maybe hasn’t found the right author. 

In the remaining days of National Poetry Month and the coming months ahead, I want to encourage you to try reading a poem. Or better yet, listen to a poet read their poem. Or take it one step further and try writing one yourself!