We get so used to the world.

We coast through our daily routines, going through motions that we have been through a thousand times before.

It is no wonder that we stop seeing the wonder of it all.

But the wonder is there, all around us, all the time—whether we acknowledge it or not.

And that’s what poetry is. A human attempt to comprehend and share personal experiences of the things that exist just beyond our perception and comprehension.

Although they may be beyond us, we can glimpse when we make art in different ways and in those glimpses we can deepen our understanding of what it means to be alive.

But poets don’t make poetry by grasping at the world and squeezing it until they get some meaning out of it—if they did that both the world and the words to describe it would quickly slip through their fingers.

Instead, poets learn how to see poetry. They learn how to notice it in their daily lives and the world around them. Then they just live. They go about their lives and when poetry pops up in daily life, in a kettle boiling over or a worn out piece of clothing, they see it without trying.

If we can learn how to see poetry in everything then before long we might find ourselves moved and enriched by some of the simplest things—things we might otherwise have overlooked.

To start seeing poetry we just have to start seeing. Slow down. Stop merely looking at the world and start really seeing it. Take in all the millions of details in every moment that make this world so wonderful.

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“…Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
~ Mary Oliver

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Relephant read:

Meditate for the Poetry, not for the Calm.

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Author & artist: Mike Medaglia

Editor: Khara-Jade Warren

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