Wow, this essay is a powerful apologetic for the power of poetry to save us in our hardest moments. What an amazing praise to the practice of poetry. I didn't know how much poems have influenced world leaders nor that it activates another part of our brain. Grateful for this!
Thank you for reading Serena! I have discovered that poetry can be very helpful and supportive and I think it speaks to the many types of companions we can have in life:)
I would love to learn more from you about how you use poetry to communicate with folks, especially your kids! My dad is a huge poetry lover and gave me FIVE thick books of poetry for my 50th birthday this year… that was his way to show love. :)
It’s so great that you recognize your father’s gift as one of LOVE:) in terms of communicating using poetry, I often try to bring it into the conversation just by mentioning it, or, recently my niece got married and so I picked out a poem for her and wrote it into a card for her as a blessing. It’s usually just simple stuff like that. My poetry exchange with my teenager was a total accident. I really recommend the I Am From Project as a way to engage younger kids in poetry. It’s a lot of fun.
My first reaction to reading this was: parenting goals! Loved the way you exchanged poems with your son. Yeah, the world needs more poetry. Great message.
Emily, this essay hit like a Whitman stanza. open-hearted and brimming with connection.
Your poetry exchange with your son is nothing short of alchemy: taking the ineffable gap that often grows in parent-teen relationships and turning it into a bridge made of verse.
It reminds me of the time my friends and I exchanged haikus, though theirs were mostly about breakfast foods, and mine were about existential dread. yet somehow, we met in the middle.
Your insight on poetry sneaking through the backdoor of consciousness is so vivid I half-expected it to steal my car keys...
Do you think our first exposure to poetry, often riddled with assignments and rote memorization, primes us to rediscover it later as an act of rebellion or reconciliation?
Also I smiled at 'hi mom, love this poem' which is proof that love doesn’t need paragraphs; sometimes, it just needs a well-chosen line ❤️
@Kuriakin Zeng thank you, so much, for sharing how this affected you. I see lots of poetic details in life, and I smiled thinking of your haiku exchange. I do think that if more people didn’t get turned off of poetry by the typical memorization assignments in school we’d have more appreciation for how revolutionary it can be.
Love this! such a beautiful, creative, and heartfelt way to communicate with your son ... also, feels so natural because feelings can be hard to articulate, especially for young boys!
Wow! Beautiful! You hit it out of the park at the start with your story about how you got you and your son to communicate through poems. And at the end tied the piece with a nice little bow with the continuation of the poetry exchange. We all need poetry in our lives. It actually made me a little emotional. And that's saying a lot.
Well written! It opens up new ways to connect to others through poetry…come check out my Whispers of the Spirit poetry page- somehow I think you could relate!
"...for all its complexity, poetry is a simple way to love. The world needs more of that." This gave me chills. Thanks Emily
Agree
Thanks Zara! You helped inspire this piece:)
This line also stuck out to me. Nice writing, Emily!
Wow, this essay is a powerful apologetic for the power of poetry to save us in our hardest moments. What an amazing praise to the practice of poetry. I didn't know how much poems have influenced world leaders nor that it activates another part of our brain. Grateful for this!
Thank you for reading Serena! I have discovered that poetry can be very helpful and supportive and I think it speaks to the many types of companions we can have in life:)
I would love to learn more from you about how you use poetry to communicate with folks, especially your kids! My dad is a huge poetry lover and gave me FIVE thick books of poetry for my 50th birthday this year… that was his way to show love. :)
It’s so great that you recognize your father’s gift as one of LOVE:) in terms of communicating using poetry, I often try to bring it into the conversation just by mentioning it, or, recently my niece got married and so I picked out a poem for her and wrote it into a card for her as a blessing. It’s usually just simple stuff like that. My poetry exchange with my teenager was a total accident. I really recommend the I Am From Project as a way to engage younger kids in poetry. It’s a lot of fun.
Ooh thanks for this!
My first reaction to reading this was: parenting goals! Loved the way you exchanged poems with your son. Yeah, the world needs more poetry. Great message.
Emily, this essay hit like a Whitman stanza. open-hearted and brimming with connection.
Your poetry exchange with your son is nothing short of alchemy: taking the ineffable gap that often grows in parent-teen relationships and turning it into a bridge made of verse.
It reminds me of the time my friends and I exchanged haikus, though theirs were mostly about breakfast foods, and mine were about existential dread. yet somehow, we met in the middle.
Your insight on poetry sneaking through the backdoor of consciousness is so vivid I half-expected it to steal my car keys...
Do you think our first exposure to poetry, often riddled with assignments and rote memorization, primes us to rediscover it later as an act of rebellion or reconciliation?
Also I smiled at 'hi mom, love this poem' which is proof that love doesn’t need paragraphs; sometimes, it just needs a well-chosen line ❤️
@Kuriakin Zeng thank you, so much, for sharing how this affected you. I see lots of poetic details in life, and I smiled thinking of your haiku exchange. I do think that if more people didn’t get turned off of poetry by the typical memorization assignments in school we’d have more appreciation for how revolutionary it can be.
Love this! such a beautiful, creative, and heartfelt way to communicate with your son ... also, feels so natural because feelings can be hard to articulate, especially for young boys!
Yes, lol. And hope he keeps sharing with me. You never know what teenagers are thinking:)
Wow! Beautiful! You hit it out of the park at the start with your story about how you got you and your son to communicate through poems. And at the end tied the piece with a nice little bow with the continuation of the poetry exchange. We all need poetry in our lives. It actually made me a little emotional. And that's saying a lot.
Well written! It opens up new ways to connect to others through poetry…come check out my Whispers of the Spirit poetry page- somehow I think you could relate!
Go Emily. Can't wait for the next one.