I have of course read definitions of poetry in dictionaries and by college professors who don't know how to write poetry, but none of it has made any sense to me. What I want to know is what poets have come to understand from the actual act of composing a poem.
What has always interested me about poetry is that it involves the body, mind and emotions all at once. That does not seem to be the experience of all poets. Academic poets seem to write mostly from the "thinking machine." I find reading Chaucer very rewarding because he is not just a "talking head." I have a sense that he is speaking from a living physical presence.
So, you poets out there, how do you compose a poem? What is your experience of bring a poem into being? What is poetry?
About Me
- Fred's Poetry Shop
- Frederick Bauman was born a poet in the city of Chicago on December 10, 1943. When he was ten they moved to the Pittsburgh area. He began writing poetry when he was 16. For several years his "bible" was an anthology called New American Poetry 1945-60. In 1965 he graduated from Washington College with a BA in English. In 1966 he was drafted into the army and stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco.. While there he came in contact with the hippie and anti-war movements. This led to experiences that became the basis for his novel, Periwinkle. In 1969 he moved to New York City. During the seventies he gave poetry readings around the City and founded and ran a reading series at Chumley's in Greenwich Village. He also became a contributing editor for the literary quarterly, Home Planet News. In addition to his novel, he has two books of poetry in print. Enneagrammatic Improvisations (2007) and Feral Idylls (2010) were both published by Codhill Press. His new collection, Song of Myself and Other Poems, will be published in 2011. He has 2 poetry projects in progress.
