“’When one is highly alert to language, then nearly everything begs to be a poem.’
–James Tate
Tate tells us that an awareness of language helps us to see the poem in all things, but I would add that an awareness of all things—not just lush farmland in the early summer. but crowded city streets, jarring suburban shopping centers, even those most unpleasant places, like airports—will open us up as writers, and help us to see the story or poem or play or monologue or memoir in everyone and everything” (The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life by Dinty W. Moore, pp.22-24).
Whew! That’s one long sentence.
Each Moment a Song
The Tate quote and Moore’s commentary remind me of a scene from August Rush. In the movie, Evan Taylor runs away from an orphanage and goes to New York City. In the crowded downtown chaos, he hears music and feels rhythm in the cacophony. A symphony of sound . . . downtown. Everything begs to be a song.
Each Life a Poem
Each life has a dramatic flair. Everyone’s life begs to be a story. A winding, passionate poem. . . sometimes sung by the birds in the air. While contemplating poems in each moment, a free-form haiku came to me.
breath coming
breath going
leaving no tracks
Photo Credit: Photo by Julie Jordan Scott at Flickr Creative Commons.
Linked with Thought-Provoking Thursday.
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