Poetry Show You Guys!

Posted by Laura G. on May 6, 2010

School Shows

Hello every one
The Poetry Show is coming
Music
Props
Movement
Memorization.

Did you take note of my well placed line breaks? 
Oh yeah, it’s on.

Ok, so I have a confession to make.  I majored in creative writing in poetry in college.  That’s no joke.  My mom’s still mad.  And I’m not a poet because a.) I was terrible at it b.) It made me obsess about rhyming things, which only reinforced the fact that I was TERRIBLE at it and C.)  I was terrified of making all that famous poet money!  But what writing poetry in college did was make me really love reading other people’s poetry.  Because reading along with a poem as if you are writing it, speaking it, or painting it is a really cool feeling.  You get to experience what it’s like to be a poet, to create images, to capture feelings, and maybe even to uncover truths, one word at a time.  And that is what we get to do in the Poetry Show.  Poems can pack so much meaning into such a small space that they can make you go “YES!” and “What?” at the same time.  So you read it again, preferably out loud.  At rehearsal, we read a lot of really good poems that unraveled in unexpected ways. Like this one:

Human Nature

Crazy
Feeling
When you sometimes when
You are happy
You get crazy
And flow up
So this isn’t
Real

-Joshua C. South Shore Cultural Center

I love this poem.  This poem made me remember what it is like to be delirious with joy.  And the last lines, I read them over and over again…is he saying that once I start to “Get crazy/ And flow up” that I can look down at all my bad day frustrations rooting me to the ground and see that they aren’t real? Or is he saying that this “Crazy/ Feeling” feels really good, and that it lifts you above it all—but only for awhile—because in the end it isn’t real ?  Or both?  AHHHHHH! POETRY!

Laura.