Yes, it's World Poetry Day on March 21. It's amazing how they seem to have a day for every conceivable thing, including teddy bears (it's on 9th September). I missed celebrating the first Pi day last week on March 14 (how do you celebrate Pi day, you ask? Well, it is a universally established fact that you do it by eating pies!) but another one turns up on 22nd July, so I can relax. Good old mathematicians - with admirable foresight they have provided two days in a year dedicated to one thing - a modest, unassuming constant that providentially sounds like a yummy dessert dish.
But back to poetry - Charlotte Bronte says that there is nothing beautiful in this world which is not poetry. This assertion wouldn't have made any sense to me a few years ago, when poems were no more than a boring section in my English textbook which I never could connect to, and no teacher could ever make me understand how blank or free verse could be considered poetry at all.
Then I read a few poems of Wordsworth - The Solitary Reaper (CBSE students would remember it), the Daffodil and Tintern Abbey (ISC students would remember this). I simply fell in love with them. They are such deceptively simple poems, talking of an emotion deeply felt, soul-stirring, which could never be put in plain prose half so well. If you've ever felt lonely, or that all "the weary weight of this unintelligible world" is dragging you down, his poems offer solace and comfort, a simple feeling of kinship and of hoping for higher things and better times.
I think poems are very similar to angsty songs by any rock/soft rock/pop band you care to name. In fact, they are songs without the music, or songs are poetry with music, whichever you prefer. After all the numbers by Linkin Park or Dead by April also talk about suffering and pain and a wish to overcome them. I think that no one can become a really good poet or rockstar without being compulsive loners or extremely sad for some reason.
All the good poets I've read about were slight misanthropes and they all reached their peak before they became famous, and either died or never wrote again, or wrote awfully once they were made Poet Laureate and began enjoying popularity. I don't know why - but fame seems to kill creativity. Maybe that's why so many bands break up after a while too - because they simply can't make the same kind of songs anymore.
Poetry is the intimate expression of someone deeply stirred by feelings not easily put in words. I have never written poetry in my life, except once - my verse is usually of the 'I have a canary, His name is Billy,' variety. Therefore I have all the more respect for people who actually can write good poetry - which I've finally understood as not something that has to rhyme or be so long but be something that flows from the heart, something that must flow from the heart or choke the person if left unexpressed. The best poetry is that which is simple and unvarnished - from the poet's heart and soul to the reader's.
Therefore I make this tribute to all my favourite poets, and authors - Wordsworth, Vikram Seth, who writes the funniest poems and first made me like poetry, Charlotte Bronte, and L.M. Montgomery who wrote prose but was a hardcore poet at heart and first taught me the distinction between a good poem and a bad one - Thank you for your gift of words for generations to come!
But back to poetry - Charlotte Bronte says that there is nothing beautiful in this world which is not poetry. This assertion wouldn't have made any sense to me a few years ago, when poems were no more than a boring section in my English textbook which I never could connect to, and no teacher could ever make me understand how blank or free verse could be considered poetry at all.
Then I read a few poems of Wordsworth - The Solitary Reaper (CBSE students would remember it), the Daffodil and Tintern Abbey (ISC students would remember this). I simply fell in love with them. They are such deceptively simple poems, talking of an emotion deeply felt, soul-stirring, which could never be put in plain prose half so well. If you've ever felt lonely, or that all "the weary weight of this unintelligible world" is dragging you down, his poems offer solace and comfort, a simple feeling of kinship and of hoping for higher things and better times.
I think poems are very similar to angsty songs by any rock/soft rock/pop band you care to name. In fact, they are songs without the music, or songs are poetry with music, whichever you prefer. After all the numbers by Linkin Park or Dead by April also talk about suffering and pain and a wish to overcome them. I think that no one can become a really good poet or rockstar without being compulsive loners or extremely sad for some reason.
All the good poets I've read about were slight misanthropes and they all reached their peak before they became famous, and either died or never wrote again, or wrote awfully once they were made Poet Laureate and began enjoying popularity. I don't know why - but fame seems to kill creativity. Maybe that's why so many bands break up after a while too - because they simply can't make the same kind of songs anymore.
Poetry is the intimate expression of someone deeply stirred by feelings not easily put in words. I have never written poetry in my life, except once - my verse is usually of the 'I have a canary, His name is Billy,' variety. Therefore I have all the more respect for people who actually can write good poetry - which I've finally understood as not something that has to rhyme or be so long but be something that flows from the heart, something that must flow from the heart or choke the person if left unexpressed. The best poetry is that which is simple and unvarnished - from the poet's heart and soul to the reader's.
Therefore I make this tribute to all my favourite poets, and authors - Wordsworth, Vikram Seth, who writes the funniest poems and first made me like poetry, Charlotte Bronte, and L.M. Montgomery who wrote prose but was a hardcore poet at heart and first taught me the distinction between a good poem and a bad one - Thank you for your gift of words for generations to come!
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