“The poet is a creator of social values. The poet then, even though he/she speaks plainly, is a manipulator of symbols and language images which have been planted by experience in the collective subconscious of a people. Through this manipulation, he/she creates new or intensified meaning and experience, whether to the benefit or detriment of his/her audience. Thus poetry is a subconscious conversation, it is as much the work of those who understand it and those who make it.”
Sonia Sanchez, An excerpt from Black Women Writers edited by Mari Evans.

To read how Ms. Sonia Sanchez perceives the poet, it’s no wonder poetry has always felt an intimidating genre to me. Growing up in Philadelphia, we were never short on hubs where words flowed over microphones in syncopated rhythms, sometimes over music, other times, solo straight to the ears of the audience, shooting this crafted language right into their veins.

What Ms. Sanchez says here, that there is an “intensified meaning and experience to our benefit or detriment” struck me, as great poetry I’ve read has absolutely threatened to tear me apart and/or put me back together again.

I’ve met poetry with opposition over the years. At times even saying that I don’t like it, which is a lie. More recently, I’ve resolved that I’m only disinterested in bad poetry. Of which there is plenty, which is also subjective, let me say that. But when I’ve read something really good, thoughtful, with a masterful command of putting experience into colorful phrasing, I’m often moved to no end. Inspired, a little jealous of my inability to have put it that way, wowed that the human brain can put words together in such an emotionally compelling way.

I’ve spoken at length about a class I took at Temple University, Poetry as Performance that truly transformed me in my practice as a writer. And it was the most significant opportunity I had to understand the true expression that poetry allows. In that class, I was able to explore my lust for a football player in one of my other classes. Share the frustration of working in an Italian restaurant to sustain myself through college. Excavate the unhealed parts of my grief. I will never forget or stop writing about that class. And I believe that everyone in that class will forever be tethered because of it. We learned so much about one another, about ourselves. We pushed our limits. We cried like babies. That my friend is the power of poetry.

When Lucille Clifton writes:

… Come celebrate
with me, that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

I feel the tears welling in my eyes because she has intensified the experience for me of what it means to be born in Babylon, nonwhite and woman. I know this intimately to live in a country that was not made for me, but made by my ancestors, and at every turn attempting to stamp out my light and yet, I am still here. We are still here.

So, I want to talk about poetry this month of April as it’s National Poetry Month. This month’s craft newsletters will be a mix of sharing work from poets I admire, a guest post, and highlighting responses to the prompt below.

This week, I’d love for you to think about what poetry means to you. I’ve had in my mind, the prompt, Poetry is …

I’d love for you to finish it in whatever way moves you. If you’re feeling really inspired, I'd love to read those. Send them my way, and with your permission, I would like to share them in the last newsletter of the month with our community.

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