Poetry and Aging

It was in reading through my recent book of poetry that several realizations made themselves at home in my brainpan. Being these four collections represent fifty years or more of my poetry, beginning in late 1969 or early 1970. I was not one to keep such written records at the time. At that age the writing apparatus was pencil and paper. Or fountain pen and paper. Ball points were just finding their way to the public at the time.

When reading those poems again, now, becomes a slipstream, binding the two periods in a knitted fashion, back and forth from then to now, line by line. I see me, then, through the thoughts on the page, and how different from the now in some ways, pretty much the same in others. What remained the same was my views and perceptions of social events, inconsistencies, conditions and tribulations. That was the 'bleeding heart' part of me. I do think most poets are connected to their poetry through the emotional connections they feel for their subjects. The magic happens when the reader feels and experiences the lines of the poem in the same way as they poet who wrote it.

I continued to pen the lines with the words coming from the heart. What changed, over time, was the voice that penned the words. As I aged and experienced more of life that the voice had to also change, and adapt to the the very experiences I went through. War, marriage/divorce, being a single parent and so many more that continued to shape my perception in new and different ways. Reading through the poems I could directly see the changes over time, the meter and rhythm, from an inner rhythm in Iambic, to more open verse. The words used also flavored the lines from the early work.

And that at times fills in the ceiling time at night, lying awake staring at the ceiling wondering if sleep would ever arrive, my minds automatically shifts into sixth gear having found an avenue of thought needing a complete history, and structure to be laid out like parts to a striped engine. Interestingly enough, I do get visuals of the parts. It's handy, but doesn't do anything to coax sleep to do its part.

In the end, it is said that it is the reader that gives a book any legitimacy or meaning. All of which rests on the author's voice, and ability to capture a reader, through their emotional connection to the words left on the page. That's the pip. Leaving the reader wanting more. For that, time is the arbiter.