Behind the verse: Six Monitor poets share why they write poetry

It’s no secret that poetry is one of the least lucrative forms of writing. So what keeps poets returning to write poems? We asked six contributors where they draw their inspiration.

One of the joys of poetry is that a verse can be whatever the reader needs it to be in that moment. But the birth of a poem can be just as personal for the poet. The Monitor reached out to six contributing poets on why they write, what inspires them, and why poetry is relevant today. Each poet has also left us a gift of original poetry. As contributor Richard Schiffman says, “In an era of instant communication, poetry slows us down, tells us to step back and take time to relish the words, to smell the flowers, to more fully inhabit our lives.” 

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I started writing poetry when I was 12 years old. As a child, I loved reading poetry, but to discover that I could also write it was liberating, a way to try to express my deepest longings and feelings. It was also a way to use my imagination, to be who I had not yet become. In the first poem I ever wrote, “The Empty House,” I imagined myself an old woman whose husband had died and whose grown children were long gone but the house still echoed with the sound of their remembered footsteps, and their love. Poetry teaches me that there are always fresh and surprising ways to both see and experience all that life holds.

The Empty House

Oh, for the sound of laughter
to echo in the empty halls,
oh, for the sound of children’s voices,
their clear childish calls.

But long has the house been empty
of the patter of little feet,
running up and down the halls
to see which one would beat,

I hear no more the sound of crying
as I wake up in the night
from little Peter across the hall
who had a nightmare and woke in fright.

I’m the only one at breakfast,
or supper, dinner, tea,
but all the children’s faces
I can plainly see.

– Sarah Rossiter

(This is Ms. Rossiter’s first poem, written when she was 12 years old.)

I am a journalist who specializes in the environment. I get a lot of pleasure from telling a story well and getting the words right. But I felt as if there was a part of my inner writer that wasn’t being expressed within the strict conventions of journalism. Poetry seemed a natural fit, since I have been deeply moved by it since I was young.

Poetry is the language of the heart. We are a very outwardly directed society where career, achievements, pleasures, and material possessions are thought to be of the highest value. Poetry can point us back inside our own inner world – to our memories and aspirations, our profound response to beauty and to loss. In an era of instant communication, poetry slows us down, tells us to step back and take time to relish the words, to smell the flowers, to more fully inhabit our lives.

Getting Dressed

Each day at dawn
I grab the great cloak of the sky
to try it on again for size.
If the mountain wears you,
so can I, I tell the sky,
as I drape my arms
through sleeves of air
and bear upon my shoulders
the weightlessness
of all and everything.
It isn’t that it doesn’t fit.
It fits just fine. Still it isn’t
fitting to strut about town
garbed in space, so I slip into
something a bit more constricting.

– Richard Schiffman

I write mostly fiction, but in 2023, I wanted a bit of a break to explore language differently and experimented with poetry. Poetry can tell powerful stories with few words and, sometimes, without words. I love the emotional depth poetry can offer where no topic is out of reach.

Her hand in mine, always

I loved how her hand felt in mine
The way our fingers interlaced,
as if slipping into grooves.
It was like touching summer.
The soft silk of flower petals.
The sweet tinge of tangerines.
Her skin radiated with the glow of the sun.

My heart leapt in her presence,
propelling me closer.
Always closer.
Her laugh tickled everything inside me,
effervescing with wonder. 
Always wonder.

When we walked,
our feet moved in rhythmic step.
Pirouettes on street corners,
tap dancing along the boardwalk,
dipping her under the amber glow of streetlamps.
Her hand in mine,
always.

– Melissa Ren

I like the challenge poetry presents. In a good poem, there are no words to waste. I try to set high standards for what I write, keeping in mind the words of the American illustrator John Held Jr., who said, “When you get to a certain point don’t think you’ve arrived, because that may only be the beginning.” I believe poetry will always be relevant, even in a hectic and distraction-filled age like ours, because a good poem lets the reader know that he or she is not alone, that someone else has felt as they do and put those feelings down to be shared.

Carousel

She loved the dining room,
With its windows south and west,
The seasons a slow carousel:
Spring a swirl of buds and blooms,
Summer’s midnight mysteries
(Fireflies spoke in flashes,
Owls flew in her supposing).
Fall flared like a match, and went out;
The table was set for Thanksgiving.
Saint Francis in the garden
Became a yardstick for snow
(When she could see his head again
She knew the worst was over).
Busy fingers, busier hands
Spun her carousel of days:
A mountain of school lunches
Held together by peanut butter,
Kisses for small hurts, hugs for bigger ones.
Playing the piano after dinner,
Sailing along on Moonlight Bay.
Now the house is empty, sold to summer people,
But when the sun floods the dining room
I like to think she still is there, watching the carousel.

– Andrew Armstrong

Poetry is accessible, letting imagery touch inner perspective. It takes everyday objects and language, and entrusts them to express themes and abstractions. It introduces the reader’s eye to the unexpected in the familiar. The best poetry contains word economy but delivers riches.

Dream Sky

All day, snow meanders through
the elm trees. At the boundary,
wild turkeys slip along the apron
of grass, past the stone wall. I try
remembering as the dogs sleep,

something from this morning, lifting
into the light, before leaving the bed
itches like wool to be remembered.
Something I suppose, as simple as snow
melts touching the earth.

Exactly what, I couldn’t tell you, something
like words in white chalk, written across
a blackboard, before being able to copy them,
waking erases to powder. It was all there
to form and falter, that something.

– Tom Husson

We need language and ideas that feed our yearning for deeper understanding of ourselves and the world, language that thrusts us out of our prosaic thinking to another way of seeing and experiencing the world. Poetry can guide us to the wondrous invisible behind what we see: a flaming-red Japanese maple tree backlit by the sun in autumn, two Jack Russell terriers jumping around on a big bed and wrestling before curling up together to sleep, a painting of a much-worn overcoat hanging on a nail. The endless possibilities of poetry can be, I believe, a powerful force for the action of good in the world and to spread light.

Writing poetry is pure delight, an energy that seizes me in the beginning and then settles into a creative emptiness in which I wait, listen, and work. Ultimately, poetry for me is a celebration of the bestest and the goodest, snippets of praise in awe of, and for the gifts of, the Divine.

Before Dawn
(murmurings to each other)

Let us rise my love
in this beautiful dark
this spacious stillness
while much of the world still slumbers

Come my love
let us go downstairs and out to the deck
and listen for the quieting sounds of night
windgutturals treemurmurs and leaftwitters
raccoon dreams hummingbird hearts
tenderest lullabies of mother bats
and – do you hear it – far far away hours ago
turtles laying eggs in the sand
and their lumbering return to the sea

Yes my love
and even farther
– listen  listen –
planets in motion and vigilant stars
nurturing us in boundless intimacy
all harmonious notes of God’s joy
no distance or time at all

Let us be patient my love
for we too are this pleroma
of spirit and silence
from the unseen universe’s
cradle of creation

Let us shine my love
Soul-light to each other
as we listen and watch the approach of dawn
and rest in this presence of Love
while we and the world take form

– Julia McBee