A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.  ~ Robert Frost

April 28th is Great Poetry Reading Day. My college professor’s eyebrows jumped as he scanned the pages we handed in, his forehead breaking into tight lines as he stared at one particular sheet of paper.  From under a troubled brow his gaze shifted tectonically, in my direction.

Once again,  I had been found out…

It happened whenever I was required to take a writing class, typically after the first few assignments were handed in.  I got spotted, and for the rest of the semester or year the teacher singled me out.  I didn’t mind the attention; Hell, I welcomed it when I handed in the damned assignments, didn’t I?

I have to admit it — I love to write, to hold the mind of others, if only for a short time…

The writing bug hit me during the Winter of 1980.  I was comfortably nestled into 8th grade, and helplessly in love with every girl who dared to approach within 10 yards of my hormones.   It probably helped that my father was stationed in beautiful Verona, Italy, surrounded by the historical architecture of Romance… We’re all supposed to be in love when we’re  in Italy, right?

A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman. ~ Wallace Stephens

Our English teacher had announced to us that the Armed Forces Radio Network was running a poetry contest.  The ultimate feel and topic of the piece was to be left up to us, but the poem had to do with the theme “Gates of Tomorrow.”  There was a quiet murmur in the room, a slow-building excitement.  Why was I feeling it, too?

I had never cared for or about the act of writing previous to this moment.  My childhood had been spent in determining the daily fate of my G.I. Joe action figures or watching enough cartoons to force my mother to eject me from the house.  Writing for homework was the quiet punishment I deserved simply for not having been freed by glorious graduation.

As my teacher passed the instructions to each of us, stapled to a blank sheet of paper, it simply, just, happened…

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. ~ T. S. Eliot

I wrote furiously, unable to keep up with the torrent of ideas, the shape-shifting cloud of words floating into view, threatening to disappear if I didn’t catch them on paper.  What the Hell was happening to me?  I wasn’t simply jotting down rhymed words; no, I was the potter, single-minded in maneuvering a lump that I had suddenly discovered in my untrained hands.

I had the certain feeling that the poem was already written, could be done in a hundred different ways, acorns strewn random in a windy forest.  I had to decide where to plant them, if only to guide the visitor one day between their fresh limbs.

If you enjoy writing, you know this feeling.  You don’t come up with a good poem; you tap in, open a valve and direct the flow.  Hell, I don’t know where the flow comes from.  I don’t read as much as I should, and I have a stack of books gathering dust at home.  As with the mountains I see in the distance from my home, I know in those books lies a part of myself I can find only upon visiting.  Those many books, you see, are my gates to tomorrow…

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. ~ Rita Dove

Today is an annual reminder to include in our lives, to take back into ourselves the ebb and flow of poetry, those concise, condensed works of literature surrounding us.  I know I tend to steer clear of the mental work required of good poetry, taking the time to read and re-read, to think and filter, the words of others.  But the tide is turning for me…

Twitter has been bringing poetry back to the forefront of my mind.  Poetry takes the filled sponge of words we would normally use to express ourselves, and wrings out all but what’s necessary to do the job.  It is distilled writing, a path from one emotional state to another lined with stones set far apart, so that we must extend ourselves in getting where we are going.

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. ~ Thomas Gray

I have always found connecting with others through writing to be a challenge, one that I love winning as often as possible.  If I can touch you through my writings, then I have found a comfortable place for you within my home.  I suppose it’s what I love about Twitter – the combination of ever-new audience and opportunity.

Twitter, when done right, can be both poetic and beautiful – but it takes time and determination to wring one’s status updates of the extra words.  I’m horribly guilty of over-tweeting.  So how do I learn to tweet less, to make my status updates dense thickets of thought, desirable for others to hack through over and again?

This would be a good day to begin anew, connecting with those great voices that are all around me, pointing out the next step for me.  Perhaps I need to begin, once again, reading some great poetry…

If you’d like to read some of my not-so awful poetry, feel free to visit here…  Otherwise, please share links to your favorite poetry sites in the comments section!