Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

-William Wordsworth

I found poetry at age 15 sitting in an English class. I don’t remember exactly which poem caught my eye. But, something in me said yes, wow I feel that. Yet, my neighbor thought it was dumb, another didn’t understand it, and it goes on and on.

This connection and disconnection is what appealed to me. I could write about anything and no one could be certain what it was I was saying. There was safety in that!

I had so much inside me that needed to be screamed at the top of my lungs. But, I was 15 and scared to let anyone know my trauma, my pain, my insecurities. This thing called poetry gave me a way to do it; to scream my shame and my secrets in the safest way possible.

Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.

-Friedrich Nietzche

I am 40 now and I still write poetry to express my feelings and thoughts. In truth it’s the only way I truly know how to express myself in flowery language and abstract ideas. The words just flow through me and out my pen with little thought at all. Does that make me a good poet or not a poet at all?

The beauty of a poem is the ability to express years of emotion in a single line.

Nothing else can do that.

As a writer of poetry I have come to realize there is no greater feeling than to have someone read your work and feel it deep inside them. That feeling of validation of not being alone.

Poetry…is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.

• Salvatore Quasimodo

There are no rules to follow, no subject you can’t touch, no research needs to be done except for life. And, I have lived some life.

So why all this rambling about the greatness of poetry? Because this morning I wrote a poem about poetry

Poetry

These words flow through my finger tips

Held captive by my tongue

My insides a ball of fire and ice

Battling over space

Keeping me from sleep

Expressing my desires

No I think not

Expressing my fears

Not an easy task

But this pain is trapped inside me like cobwebs to trees

And

I often feel as if I’m drowning in fields of wildflowers

When I should be flying

Through mountain tops

And

My insides are shattered like broken glass being held together by words never spoken

So I write

Where else can I tell you

That my mind is a movie

Steel Magnolias written by Quentin Tarantio

-Colombe Anderson