The Healing Verse
I was roughly twelve years old when I wrote my first poem. I devised the short verse in my head on the car ride home from somewhere long forgotten, repeating it to myself over and over until I knew it well enough to write it down upon our arrival. It was four lines about balloons and it was my mother’s reaction that set me on a lifelong path of reading, writing, and passionately loving poetry.
She handed me a thick book that barely fit in my still child-sized hands called, The Best Loved Poems of the American People. She encouraged me to read it and told me that it would help me with my writing. I shudder to think where I would be now if she had reacted differently. Each time I pick up one of the many poetry books I own, I send gratitude and love for her choice at what turned out to be a pivotal moment in my life. Subsequently, every time I open a poetry book, I become so swept up by the verse that hours pass as though they were minutes and when I force myself to close them all (I cannot open just one), great effort is required to return to mundane tasks. Anything compared to poetry is banal.
The thing about poetry that people often misunderstand is that you don’t have to understand it. Despite what English professors might say, we don’t need to know what the poet meant to have a reaction to their words. Poetry is a visceral experience. It is expression in its purest form, felt in the bones and meant to be read aloud. Poetry takes us somewhere other than where we were the moment before. The more we read aloud, the more we find. The more we find, the more we feel. Poetry is expansion and that is healing.
Whenever I pass a bookstore, I stop by the poetry section and buy a book (Canadian, if I can find one) and I am always in awe of how it affects me. The words read aloud imprint my throat and lungs with their medicine unlike anything else I have experienced. So, like my mother did for me all those years ago, I encourage you to read a poem. Read it out loud. Read another, then another. Don’t think about what it means, simply let the words rattle around your chest and experience the vibration. You may be surprised what happens next.