Poetry

If novels are movies, short stories are like a series of pictures and and poetry is an impressionist or abstract paintings. Impressionist paintings don't have defines lines, they get more clear and defined the further away you get from it. Abstract pictures are based in concept and not reality. Stories are about conveying ideas, messages and concepts. Poetry is about conveying emotions. Emotions don't have edges they are more defined the further away you are and the lines get blurrier the closer you get. Poetry is based in the concept, and often have little to do with the concrete reality.

Further finding poetry you like is like walking through a huge art galary. There are lost os painting you pass quickly saying, "I don't get it." There are others you pass and think, in passing, "that's nice enough." and then there are the ones you stop and stand in front of for hours because they speak to your soul. Poems are hit or miss like that. Critics and peers don't matter, only what speaks to your soul in that way only art can.

That is what I told my kids today as I introduced poetry. I read them Mark Strand's Eating Poetry and other poems I like (Cow, Forgetfulness, Being in Love, Happiness, Dark Angel and Plath's Daddy.) I couldn't read them "A Puppy Called Puberty" because I I didn't want to deal with the parental phone calls.

Anyway, first period was kind of cold, second period was very warm and third period was two thirds enthralled and one third asleep.

But all in all it was a good day doing the part of my job I truly love, sharing the joy that is poetry.