Don't Know Much About . . .

When I truly started to think about becoming a Writer, note the capital letter, I was in high school.  I had gained the insight that a Writer was actually paid to write things.  Nevertheless, it still hadn't dawned on me then that I could be paid to write.  Not like a REAL Writer.  But still, I wanted to be part of the exalted ranks of those who wrote things that other people read.  Willingly.  To me, however, a real writer wrote prose.  Not poetry.  There was no reasonable basis for this conclusion; I had not read enough poetry to have a valid conclusion of any kind.  But in my mind, prose and poetry were such different modes of creating a vision, of sharing a voice; one that I understood and one that I didn't.  When I read poetry, any poetry, I often thought, this is some inaccessibly esoteric rambling that just doesn't speak to me.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  I just hadn't read enough poetry.

Below are two pieces of writing.  One prose.  One poetry.   

Prose version:

A woman stands on a mountain top with the cold seeping into her body. She looks on the valley below as the wind whips around her. She cannot leave to go to the peaceful beauty below. In the valley, the sun shines from behind the clouds causing flowers to bloom. A breeze sends quivers through the leaves of trees. The water gurgles in a brook. All the woman can do is cry.

Poetry version

The Woman on the Peak

The woman stands upon the barren peak,

Gazing down on the world beneath.

The lonely chill seeps from the ground

Into her feet, spreading, upward bound.

The angry wind whistles ‘round her head,

Whipping her hair into streaming snakes,

While she watches, wishes, weakly wails.

Beyond the mountain, sunshine peeks,

Teasing flowers to survive and thrive.

The breeze whispers through the leaves,

Causing gentle quivers to sway the trees.

Laughter gurgles as the splashing brook

Playfully tumbles over rugged rocks,

While the woman above can only grieve

Would you like to write poetry like that?  I certainly would.  The poem definitely helps you to "see" the things the writer is saying.  The composition also provides a swing, a rhythm that is missing in the prose piece.  I can see that now.  Writers learn to write through reading.  I am learning that reading good poetry is one of those ways of learning how to be a good poet and hopefully a good writer.  The ubiquitous "they" are known to say that if we put good thoughts in our minds, good thoughts will come out.  So, I will continue to read really good poetry, starting with Roberto Bolaño's beautiful book of poems The Romantic Dogs and hope that those good thoughts do indeed come out.