As of December 10 2008

Poetry cannot be summed up or defined, it is too broad and open to be kept in constraints. Poetry and constraints don’t even belong in the same sentence because poetry defies constraints. It is the most socially acceptable way to break out of the norm. Poets are known as crazy. Not that anyone but a poet could begin to define crazy. However as a poet, I will eagerly claim insanity.

Words are a never ceasing journey, and once poetry has the poet, and the poet has poetry, they have entered a whirl wind love affair that will be full of it’s ups, downs, separations, doubts, and moments of absolute bliss. The relationship will never make sense or be understood in any explainable way but it will be of the utmost significance. It could last for life, or it could end abruptly. Either way the result will be lasting on the poet, and lasting on poetry. For every hand that has ever held a pen and let another move it for them, has put a dent in this vast, ever changing idea.

This is poetry for me. Our relationship is new and old, still growing, flourishing and becoming ever more exciting. Writing is my sanctuary keeping me sane, it is also my flaming sword of protest and change. It speaks, yelling, screaming, circling around that subconscious idea until it has inadvertently struck and its audience is given a broader look at things, or a new perspective.

Every poem I write is a piece of my soul, sometimes extracted with much pain. Once on paper it has become its own separate entity, yet still part of my soul. I launched it out there in the universe as soon as my fingers hit the keyboard, or my pen hit the page, and people can embrace it or destroy it. In the same sense, either embracing or destroying me. Yet at the same time, my poetry is not me. It is not even related to me. The Sally whose words fall on paper, and the Sally whose words are lost in the air are not the same Sally, though they share the same mind and physical body. I can see myself losing the reader at this point in my nonsensical logic, but never the less it is logic.

Poetry cannot exist without logic. Logic drives poems. Something has to keep the words going, flowing, ebbing, moving. That is the job of logic in poetry, it motivates; whether subconsciously or blatantly, it is there in the words, the sound or the form. I can really only speak for my poetry, but this is also how I see poetry on a whole, this is my manifesto. Nothing else so creative could ever be so brimming with fact, and be used as such a burning form of propaganda, than poetry.

Then there is sound. Here I really speak for no one else but myself. Sound is one form of logic, and sound is the logic I personally prefer. Nothing makes more sense than sound. Sounds can speak for themselves without any clearly defined meaning behind them. Sounds are powerful. With sound a scream is as loud as a whisper. There are sounds that are comforting, and sounds that are unsettling. The sound that settles my soul may not settle the soul of my neighbor, it may in fact have them leaping from their bed and running out into the night in terror. In either case it impacts. There is no sound in the world that doesn’t impact. Every sound no matter how simple holds meanings, thoughts and memories that are associated with the sound. There are similarities for people in these meanings, and there are differences. Sound meanings are subconscious and complex. Rarely can one explain why a particular sound makes them think of what it does. In this way sound is almost more powerful than words, and written word is probably the best way to communicate anything, besides perhaps with silence.

My poetry is laden with sound. Sound is my logic, my brain thinks in sound. Through my poetry my sound should speak gabbing the reader, the sound telling one story, the words another, and together they combine for the full meaning.

When reading poetry an open mind must be kept. All stereotypes and preconceived ideas about right and wrong should be forgotten and nothing but the poem should be thought of. Such a work deserves the full undivided attention of the world. So slyly poetry hides before the world realizes it has dug in its teeth, pointed out every worldly flaw and embraced it. Each poem as different as the thumb print and personality of each person, nothing is ever the same. Just as everything, is always changing.