What even is poetry anyway…

When I saw Vocal’s latest challenge “Get Comfortable” I felt a flutter of excitement. For me, poetry is synonymous with comfort.

In fact, William Sieghart’s poetry anthology ‘The Poetry Pharmacy’ is a permanent fixture on my bedside table; it’s book ribbon forever resting on page 72, James Fenton’s The Ideal. If you haven’t read it, I recommend giving it a try. After all, who needs a therapist when you’ve got poetry?

Or as Stephen Fry more eloquently puts it, it ‘is a balm for the soul, an arm around the lonely shoulder… a matchless compound of hug, tonic and kiss,’ - and that’s just reading the stuff.

Writing poetry is another experience entirely. It is a form of processing. It allows us to unfurl those delicate fronds of feeling, to pull and prod, and gently tease away, until we are laid bare and we can start rebuild the fragments of the self, piece by piece, line by line.

I was, therefore, a little disappointed when I realised that the contest, retained Vocal’s standard minimum word count of 100 words. I do get it. As a long form platform Vocal seeks to foster an engaged readership; a real community, where presumably, submissions are prepared with thought and care, and the articles are designed to be read, rather than mindlessly scrolled through. You only have to spend a few minutes scrolling down one of Instagram’s poetry hashtags to see why a minimum word count might be considered a useful tool in this regard. At the risk of sounding a lot like my mother, I have often wondered, as I flick past a few whistful words strung together in some desperate attempt to sound profound, what really constitutes poetry? Maybe that’s a debate for another day though.

I was nevertheless disappointed, as like many of my poems, which favour a short playful rhyming style, it would therefore not qualify for entry. For the record, neither would James Fenton’s own masterpiece, as that is, by my count, a mere 53 words long.

So what was I to do?

After submitting two other poems which met the word count, I decided to write this. That’s not to say that I’m not happy with my other entries (in fact I’d be rather honoured if anyone cared to read them…), but I felt they didn’t quite ‘scratch’ the preverbial ‘itch’. Or even more importantly address what poetry means to me.

Neither of the other submissions captured the rushing sense of inner acceptance that comes from reading a few carefully chosen phrases and realising that you are not the only person to have experienced this feeling.

That you are not the first.

That you will not be the last.

That you are not alone.

Surely, we can all agree that this is a comforting thought indeed?

So throwing caution to the wind, and to the rules, I would like to share this poem with you. As whether it qualifies or not, poetry is designed to be read. To be shared. To be enjoyed.

I hope you enjoy it.

Read. Write. Breathe.

I craze buzz of early love

So I flip their pages eager.

I seek the bittersweet

Earth-shattering defeat.

That claims their happy ever after.

I chase the raw, death- defying claw

That saves them from disaster.

The gritty gumption

The sweet assumption

That all these stories offer.

So I flip their pages eager.

*

If you’d like to read my other submissions for Vocal’s ‘Get comfortable’ - please click on the links below! No waffle… just poetry… I promise 😆.

1. Simple Weekend Dreams

https://vocal.media/poets/simple-weekend-dreams

2. Power of the Mind

https://vocal.media/poets/power-of-the-mind-hu4sh002hl