Feeding on Poetry

A few years ago I was part of the Colorado Springs Writer’s Reading Series, hosted by poet Abby E. Murray and later by Mandy Solomon. It was a wonderful experience to read my work aloud--primarily short, fictional stories. After one event, Abby encouraged me to write poetry. Like a shame-faced school girl, I reluctantly admitted that I had been writing poetry for many years, but I did not feel confident in those efforts as a writer. To which Abby replied that many fiction writers say that very same thing.

Ever since then I have been wrestling with why I have not wanted to reveal or read my poetry to anyone. And it came to this--vulnerability. I did not want others to know the fresh grief, the deep and intimate sorrows, the reverential reflection of God in nature, the zealous and ardent praise of Jesus Christ and even the jubilant moments of joy and fun. Poetry has been for me quite a private matter. Certainly, as any author, I am revealed in my fiction and my Christian writing. But poetry is primitive emotion for me. It is raw and far too intimate than I wish for it to be. And yet it is for that very reason that I love to read and write poetry.

As I thought about compiling my poems for publication, I reviewed my book shelves and found multiple volumes of poetry and hymns. There is T.S. Eliot (to which I return frequently), Odgen Nash’s Zoo (for great and pithy fun), H.D., William Pratt, Milton, Longfellow, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and Dr. Seuss. I also have Holy Bibles of many versions about my house, providing me with daily doses of powerful religious poetry in the Psalms and Prophets, which I cannot live without. I have multiple volumes of hymns of the Christian church from which I gain strength and encouragement. And in my memory banks, still alive with the marvelous illustrations, sit the 1961 Childcraft Poems of Early Childhood and Storytelling and Other Poems. “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes stands out as a most passionate and evocative love poem that I still remember vividly to this day.

Exorcising this fear of revealing myself through poetry is now an important step in my life as a writer. It seems about all I can do at this point. I have many, many other non-poetry projects still brewing, but they are in the back on a low burner. Judge me not for perfect meter or lack of contemporary angst, but only on the merit of a life that feeds on poetry.

M.R. Hyde
Copyright 2019