When is the last time you thought about poetry?

We went to a dinner last night with a poet who is from Duluth, Connie Wanek. Here's the biggest news- my husband willingly went AND he liked it. Of course, there was good food and a little wine so the wheels were greased, but this woman was so great. Understated and just able to nail things we all see hundreds of times, and yet she was the one to come up with the perfect words. It wasn't overwraught or so obscure that you felt lost. It was just...real. I can't say I am over the moon for poetry. Or more accurately, perhaps my personality just isn't suited for it. I spent some junior high years rhyming- one particular claim to fame occured in 7th grade when I changed the words to a then-famous and very classy country song, "Elvira" and wrote about Santa. Mrs. Raymond gave me rave reviews and this set off a flurry of overwraught and over-rhymed poems about my baby brother and flowers(gag!) and life(double-gag!). As per typical in my relationship with my hubby, I discovered that he can do most everything better than me. He is a renaissance man- cleaning, drawing, musical, and he wrote this in junior high:
Happiness is
the pitter patter of little feet
across our kitchen floor.
He has a younger sister by quite a few years and his junior high time had a baby in it. My brother was 8 years younger and I wrote:
My brother is a baby.
I like to hold him maybe.
Until he cries.
We all know understatement is not my strong suit so perhaps that's why I won't be a poet. I can live with that.
Check out this link for more. http://www.conniewanek.com/

Comments

  1. Not so long ago.
    To those who know me it will come as no surprise to hear I am not a fan of modern poetry but I am fan of the Victorian poets: Shelly, Byron, Elizabeth (should I add Barrett?) and Robert Browing (the poems they sent to each other are some of the best), Service (OK so he is pushing the Victorian mold), and Mansfield (to me there is no better poem than 'I Must Go Down to the Sea').

    Dudley Doright and his horse called Horse
    (aka Jim)

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