POETRY |
Paper and Pen, Always at Hand - Weebly.com
The Life of a Poet
by Vivian Imperiale
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I know how it is
when poetry takes over. My feelings have a depth that needs to be explored so I can find language to describe the what and why of them. One day I heard myself say to someone, “I’m a poet.” I hadn’t expected these words to come out of me as I hadn’t internalized that concept. But “poet” made sense really. Paying attention and writing about what I saw started when I was six. There is an ever-present vigilance with an urgency and immediacy that cannot be ignored. Last week a poem came to me at 3 AM and I didn’t want to wake my sleeping dog and cat so I wrote the poem by flashlight in my bed. Then there was the day I was waiting for my friend at an intersection. Suddenly I had a strong memory of an incident from a year earlier at that very street corner. So I grabbed a pen and paper— always in my purse— and wrote the whole poem before my friend showed up. I’ve stopped in my group exercise class to write down a fetching phrase; I’ve interrupted my reading on the bus when a sentence of my own beckons me to paper. I’ve taken out my pad at the grocery store, on a hike, in line at an event. I have to write while it’s there or it disappears. Poetry drives me. I see more. I hear more. I think. I remember. I translate feelings and scenarios into words that flow from my soul. Later when I read those poems, alphabetically filed in a binder, they bring all the sweetness and pain and longing back into my heart to re-live. Yet I live with the fear that the stream of ideas will come to a halt. My poetry will stop and then how will I exist? The truth of why I no longer am here will be simply stated on my tombstone: “She ran out of poems.” |
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