What’s poetry mean to you? You can find definitions, but to be honest, I’m the “I know it when I see it, and only then I think maybe I know it,” sort. Could that be part of why my novels are taking so long (tell me about it)?
For some, the poetry has to rhyme. Others want the words perform some sort of rhyming math, along the lines of 5-7-5 triplets that haikus do. There are plenty of poetry lovers who elect to break all the rules. It’s been said that one needs to know rules first, but lots of writers consider the learning part too much of a bother. If you want, here’s writer/scholar Brian Geiger’s advice on publishing poetry at WordPress, and author Josephine Corcoran’s on formatting it for WordPress.
Ahhh… to each their own…
In today’s case, the “own” belongs to Joseph Mayo Wristen. Born in Toppenish, Washington, he’s mostly lived in the U.S. North West. From ages 17 to 26, he traveled all over Europe and North America, working odd jobs and meeting interesting people. He’s attended college and film school, sold encyclopedias and children’s books, and currently works in the solar energy.
It took a while for him to share his poetry, but since his youngest daughter told him he should, he’s published a bunch!
His Facebook page includes videos of him reading aloud. Here’s one of his that Nopoet JaArtist uploaded to their Youtube site.
Remember, Emily Dickinson showed us, “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers”…
a bird’s song heard in a dream by joseph mayo wristen
12 crows sitting across the street
scattered wings of origin
perched from the tree tops
to the hanging branches below
someone is here visiting us
misunderstandings found in
history’s unknown truths
feelings that come over you when
you know you’re not alone
drop of rain touching trenched
soil secret in magic’s reconciliation
an eye summoning autumn’s flower
our souls last tear — love
calling out for collectivism
in this world of fame there are
many forces that stand against
man’s idol tides of destruction
voices heard in the silence of the
wind, modernization scattered
across time’s voided scheme
players in twilight’s hour
calling out to you, asking you
to take a moment to listen to
nature’s wish, rhythms found
in her breath violent yet caring
in a succession of union
lights appearing one at a time
here and there throughout
bear wolf earth’s seeded wilderness
all along the way life’s song
giving us a chance
for solitude in love’s redemption
there can be no blame in
our yesterday or in our search
for the way of tomorrow
here lies the
warble answer to
the diseased
rumors and innuendoes of our heritage
you know there is nothing to finding
peace if we will only allow ourselves to believe
in the vision found in god’s dream
a bird heard in the night
singing
to us his song of forgiveness
What does poetry mean to you?
Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 
I am very impressed how you supplement your Anchor podcasts with compatible music and sound effects here. Your intros also make me think me make more about how to improve my own listening endeavors. I know from experience how much time it takes to get one’s Podcast right. For example, choosing to tape one’s voice makes the process much longer. In addition, these technical matters of editing, splicing and adding background can interfere with the time I actually spend on writing itself. Any suggestions for expediting these matters successfully?
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dunno if it helps, but I often get frustrated by how long it takes to get things right too — but it’s part of the process & if you’re like me, you do it all on your own. I hear a lot of people contract out some tasks to Fiverr and the like. It helps me to batch things — for instance, I try to set up a bunch of shows in advance, first do all the text part, then the recording parts, then the images, & so on…
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Thanks for the feedback. To clarify, I post my Word Press posts first with images and then export them to Anchor. Is that what you do?
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since I don’t like how my posts often don’t sound good aloud, I have a completely different wordpress site where I paste in blog posts, tweak them to sound better to the ear, & then send them to anchor from there. then on my anchor site, I reference my original blog site
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& I forgot to say thank you — & also, did I already mention that I set up a separate wordpress site for the AI reader? it has to be officially public, but I don’t publicize it — it’s so I can tweak the text to flow well with how the AI reads it
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The words of this poem mystical flow of ideas as I listened to the audio version of this poetry.
So it’s the spoken out loud element to me that most distinguishes poetry.
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interesting observation!
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To me, poetry touches the heart and the soul in as few words as needed. Some poetry does it in five words, some in 105. But as others have said, I know it when I feel it. I also like prose poetry. So nice to meet Joseph here and to read his wonderful poem.
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much appreciate your thoughts & your stopping by, Pam 🙂
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Thank you for sharing!.. I usually refer to poetry as “thoughts that rhyme” and whenever I attempt to write poetry, I just let my fingers to the walking and my heart do the talking…. 🙂
Have a wonderful day today, and ever day, and until we meet again..
May the love that you give
Always return to you,
That family and friends are many
And always remain true,
May your mind only know peace
No suffering or strife,
May your heart only know love and happiness
On your journey through life.
(Larry “Dutch” Woller)
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I love the poems you share on your blog 🙂
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