poetry – Beautiful Creative Minds

Why do you think poetry and art in general is such an important outlet for so many people?

Lots of smart people have said smart things about this subject, so I’m going to go with Gwendolyn Brooks who said, “Poetry is life distilled.” For me, that’s always what’s been the most attractive about the art form. When I’m writing a poem I take all of my thoughts and experiences about a subject and try to relate them in as few words as possible. I think that a poem should tell you its story as succinctly as it can, and I think that’s what art does for people. It removes everything extraneous so that we can focus on the emotions and ideas that actually matter. Read the full article here

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It’s like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Image of the sculptor Antony Gormley and poetry by Mary Oliver

Beautiful Creative Minds

Tag: poetry

Neil Hilborn – Poet

Antony Gormley and Mary Oliver