A Poem a Day: Poetic Bloodline

Ignore the date and time, I just like the image. Source: http://www.artifolio.com/PCSSdesign/gallery/artwork/&up_id=41098

Here’s number 30, the end of this series of poetry. I have left out so many poets: Rilke, Rumi, Rimbaud, Shakespeare, Sexton, Ashberry, Baudelaire, Goethe, Petrarch, Benedetti…and these are only poets I know and like.

If you “don’t like poetry,” go and find some that you like; in all the languages, cultures, literatures of the world, there is something to offer, and I have a very hard time imagining that nothing moves you. Make an effort: find some lines, read them out loud, feel how they taste in your mouth, spit them out, try others. Or listen to others recite poetry, in the language you speak or in others. I’m serious, you have to give it a try, it isn’t hard.

If you do like poetry, go and find some unfamiliar verse, something new to keep you on your toes, to keep you moving. Don’t get comfortable, and don’t ever let the rhythm of the words get dull or lose their flow. Recite them again and again, or put them down and pick others up, or go back to those you put down long ago.

Here is a master of spoken word, the poet Gemineye, reciting his poem “Poetic Bloodline”:

The DVD from which I pulled poem number 30