In school, when we would pick apart poems as part of our assignments, I never understood why we had to guess at the poet’s message and meaning. Maybe like art, the meaning is in the eye of the beholder, so the point is that there are many meanings. But if that was the case, I would have been okay with it. What I remember is that there was a right answer. And we had to guess what it was.
Some of the poems were so complex, I would read and read and read, and still not figure out what the hell they meant. And why would I want to “get it right” anyhow? Why didn’t the meaning I saw count?
Still today, when I pick up a book of poetry and read words that seem complex in their combinations and tease me with their possible meaning, I get turned off. I want to read and feel, effortlessly. I want the message and the meaning of the artist to flow into me like music, where all I have to do is lay back and listen and let my imagination do the interpretation. I want to be moved by the simple emotion the words trigger in my heart. I don’t want to have to guess. I don’t want to be tested for the right answer.
The poetry that I have written of late is simple, heartfelt, and has moved through my awakening cells to the page. I am tired of feeling like it is not complex enough, or scholarly enough, or whatever enough. I will stop that now. If the journals and magazines don’t feel it is a fit for them, then I am okay with that. Maybe they want pieces that their readers have to struggle with. My poetry and art isn’t intended to make you struggle or guess. It is intended to light a spark in your soul, so that you want to make your own art and poems.
Something is hard only because we believe it should be. What if life, and love, and art, was an easy flow of spirit, and instead of testing others for the right answer, we invited them into that world, with our words? That would be a poem worth writing.
