Writing

How to recognize a poet

If you write poetry and no one reads it, is it still a poem? What if no one likes it?

Gets it?

Shares it?

What if it’s never published?

Never praised?

Is it still a poem?

How — really — does one recognize a poet?

Is the title earned? Learned?

I admit —

I am a reluctant poet.

Reluctant, not because I don’t enjoy weaving short thoughtful phrases together and calling it poetry, and not because I don’t enjoy reading short thoughtful phrases woven together by others

but mostly because I am not 100% sure how to recognize a poem.

And I am not 100% sure I am a poet.

Poetry confuses me. It makes me insecure.

I doubt it. I judge it. In a way I don’t judge novels or articles or essays.

When I read poetry, I am often left confused.

When I write poetry, I am overly critical. Hungry for approval and acknowledgment.

Is it the writer in me, I wonder, that is anxious and unsure?

Or is it the human?

There was a time when I thought I knew poetry. When I thought that poetry was as simple as alliteration

alliteration

as simple as limericks … as quatrains … as rhyme.

I was in third grade and poetry was the unit during Language Arts.

We created a poetry book — I still have it. It’s bound in wallpaper and decorated with a rainbow colored pride known only by nine year old girls and confident gay activists.

poetry book

And I am moved by the poet I was then.

I am struck by how I saw the world when I was a poet, and I am envious of the girl who strung together lavish gibberish and confidently presented it as verse.

Oh, how the words flowed then…

/

walking down the stairs

holding tight to the staircase

taking your first step

Your parents at the bottom

finally your (sic) down the stairs.

/

In 1983, under the instruction and guidance of Mrs. Wald, I wrote a 12-page, wallpaper-bound book of poetry.

The pieces vary in length and in depth.

They cover topics that range from my childhood home to the mountains of Japan.

They make perfect sense and no sense at all.

Some rhyme, some reference people I no longer remember.

30 years later, I read this book of poetry and I am moved.

Does that make me a poet?

Is that enough?

I say it is.

It’s enough.

Not enough for contests or Ph.D.s or prizes, that’s for certain.

But enough to offer me the confidence

to write another poem

tomorrow.

14 thoughts on “How to recognize a poet”

  1. I call something a poem when I can’t call it something else. I struggle with the title of poet as well. I will leave it to those snapping fingers in coffee shops talking about how modern society is robbing us of any creativity. Potato.

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  2. I definitely call your post on preparing for Rosh Hashana a poem and you a poet. I guess it is something in how just a few lines you are transported somewhere else. Directly to another moment where you can experience what is going on, and it is delicious.

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  3. This is fabulous – I have post envy! It’s exactly how I feel when I write poetry…and sometimes when I write prose.
    Thanks for visiting and following my blog – it’s given me the opportunity to find yours.

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  4. I love this Jen. I love your capacity to put things out there? To question what isn’t questioned and to put words to those phrases that rattle around the corridors of our mind? What makes us anything? Is it an internal framework or one that is defined by the outside world? Ummmm …. fab piece ….. and great poetry!

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  5. Thank you Ginz. I still question whether or not I write poetry, but I don’t think I question anymore whether or not I am a poet. I’m also learning that there is so much more to poetry than what I thought there was and there are published poets whose voices are in a similar key to mine whom I can learn from. Anyway … thanks for your feedback and for your poetry!

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