Dear Reader,
Pictured above is a poem I’ve been working on titled, Circles. As you can see, the original poem written in my notebook looks different from the typewritten version, and the typewritten version bears the everpresent markings of red ink, once again changing and shaping the poem into something new. Even now, the finished draft, sitting on my computer, is “finished” only because I’ve ceased to work on it. Still, in a few weeks, I might read it over and find that more changes need to be made, that the vein runs deeper, and that more delicate tools are needed to extract the mineral ore we call poetry. Even after it’s published and put out into the world, the poem takes on new life as readers read and interact with it. Its meaning is malleable, and as each reader applies his own reading to the text, the poem again takes on new life.
Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, makes the point that “You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on.” Like a river whose flow creates constant change, poetry is also always changing, it flows from idea to pen to page and out into the world, never the same, always morphing and changing as it follows the course of creativity. In that sense, poetry is a living art. Its borders are permeable, roaming wild on the open plains of the human mind.
“You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on.”
Thus the reader is just as important as the poet. When you read a poem, you're participating in a journey beyond yourself. In your reading, the poet and audience are bound together in an unbreakable bond that travels beyond space and time. I love when people share with me how they understand my work. They often see things I’ve yet to see and shed new light on poems I thought were dull and dry. In these interactions, the poems come to life, their organic quality brimming with creative energy. They undergo a recreation, a resurrection that awakens those dormant themes hidden behind the stanzas and lines.
Because poetry exists beyond all of us, it is eternally generative and is given new life when new readers turn their attention to the poem on the page. This is the true magic of poetry and why we continue to return to it even after reading it. When we return to a familiar poem after some time, we have also undergone change, and that change is now read into the poem revealing new and surprising mysteries we wouldn’t have seen before.
The goal of reading poetry is not “getting it.” It’s about experience. We experience the poem. Poems aren’t things to unravel and unlock. There is no mystery codex to discover their meaning. Poems are friends, friends who desire to be known and experienced, not dissected and prodded. There are no right answers. There is only the experience. The edges of the river might be familiar, but the water passing through is totally new, and only when we stop to embrace its newness will poetry come alive for us in all its glory and fullness.
CIRCLES Rings, rims, and water wheels, 2-D cutouts of planetary spheres, the stool on which I sit, the sound of turning gears. Broken ground and anthills, volcanoes and bottlecaps, The watchface keeping time, The shape of her sun rimmed eyes. My lens moves in and out of focus, the red light says no. The letter "O"; the shape her lips make when she says the word go.