True or not, many people, myself included,
think common senses has long been declining. However, uncommon sense has seldom
exceeded the norm – at least not beyond childhood when everything was new.
Children notice, explore, and investigate
through their senses. When we were kids, we probably did too. We touched the
roughness of asphalt pavement or dad’s day-old beard and felt the smoothness of
a glass window or the softness of an elderly arm.
We noticed how the smell of air changed from before
to after a storm, and we breathed in the odor of brownies baking or sweet
clover on a summer day.
We tasted the sharp tang of a lemon and cold
sweetness of ice cream, and we listened for the song of a wren or the sound of
a coming train.
Our eyes took in everything beautiful,
everything misshapen, everything out of place. Some of us even had the ability
to sense the mood of a sibling, parent, or teacher, and we could readily recognize
the variations of tone in a dog’s bark.
Lord willing, those senses remain available to
most of us, assuming we choose to train ourselves to tap back into them. But, why
bother?
Straining for imagination doesn’t add honesty
or realism or provide the best way to identify with readers. However, simply paying
attention to what we see, feel, taste, hear, smell, and sense will elevate our
poetry – and, indeed, all genres of writing – from the common to the uncommon. Haiku,
especially, requires observation, for example:
Heavy fog hung low,
shrouding the sky with a veil
ripped open by rain.
…
Memory flickers
like an old movie reel – off
and on or broken.
…
Longer poems can also result from paying
attention:
Clarity
A moment of thankfulness intrigues me
by its rarity. What’s
the problem here?
Sitting on the deck, I’m hardly aware
of the blue heron staring at the pond,
searching for some deep meaning.
Instead, I notice the sun glaring in my eyes,
the tin roof of the new house across the water
reflecting all around me, the pesky mosquito
buzzing for warmth before I slap a warning,
but then comes the dawning
of beauty,
of birdcall,
a hum of music,
a note of thankfulness.
Mary Harwell Sayler
from poetry book
Most of my favorite poets are close observers,
such as those discussed in the previous posts linked below. Their brilliant descriptions
and fresh figurative language make us want to read their poetry again and
again:
If you’ve discovered poets whose poems ignite
your enthusiasm for observation, or reawaken your senses, let us know in the
Comments below. Thanks.
…
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