Warning: Writing and/or reading poetry is good for your health. I urge non-poetry readers to open-mindedly browse through the pages of poetry books, especially the works of contemporary poets who amplify our daily ordinariness with craftsmanship and courage. To truly appreciate the language of poetry is to be able to come back to it again and again. Not with wisdom supplied by educators or cerebral articles addressing The Real Meaning, but a willingness to allow the senses to be stirred and nourished. Even reading poetry as a child, I never worried if I “got” it.
Often students ask where my ideas stem from. Naively I refer to a barrage of inspirations, bowing to the commonplace and the patois of my childhood. But mostly they are guided by the opening of Zora Neale Hurston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God...“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” That one sentence embodies a poetry I crave to attain. In retrospect there was always a thirst, a growing growl, to tackle and nonchalantly lay down words capable of breathing on their own. At times I’m not quite sure how to start or even where a poem may end. Though the writing process often gets the better of me, I welcome the taste of language and the ability to share it with others. One’s imagination is always on the brink of something else. There’s an old saying that there’s never anybody around when you wrestle with an angel. Nonetheless, poets write because they have to…and the angels know it.
It is rare that people actually go after the things they want to do and become in their lifetimes. Far too many wave back at their dreams. Through poetry I am able to passionately be on board with my wishes.
—Lonnie Black (1958-2016), prose piece originally published in Hartford Courant's Northeast Magazine.
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