Remember when I said I wanted to write a poem a day? Remember earlier in January when another Odessey writer, Gracie, inspired me to compose a poem each day? Well, the results are in. The month is complete, and my best effort was put forward. I have roughly 20 to 25 poems that I have written this past month. No, that is not 31 complete works, but it hits most of the mark, and I still learned a couple of things along the way.

1. Poetry is everywhere you look.

Writing a poem each day for a week seems pretty standard. You can easily rely on old tropes of love, heartbreak, sunrises, etc. But once you get past a certain point, that becomes repetitive and incredibly boring. You run out of fresh material. So then what do you do? Open your eyes a little wider to the magic that is our existence. Write about funny things. Write about weird things. Describe things in a new and different ways. The main goal of a poet is to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. They take the basic things of our existence, our emotions, our surroundings, and like an abstract artist, they manipulate them into something new, something tangible, something that makes you feel.

2. Music can be the most complex of poetry.

Now, in high school English, we learned that lyrics to musical songs is basically poetry. We did exercises where we read the lyrics to our favorite songs without the tune. And we then analyzed the lyrics as normal poems that had never been put to steel guitar or what have you. I understood the concept, and we moved on. But then my eyes were re-opened during this little exercise of mine.

I listened to music. And I really listened to it. You see, when you read poetry on paper, you have so much liberty over what the poet has written down. You can set the pace. You can inflict tones. You can speak it in silence or to the background of a noisy cafe. But when a poem is being sung to you by its own artist. You best be listening well. Because everything that artist does is important. Their speed. How many vocals there are. What instruments they use. The notes the play. The accidentals that are added. The emotion in their voice. It all changes the poem. It all adds to the song. Because I was writing my own poetry along listening to these lyrics, I could learn to appreciate how much heart and soul is put into these creations. Art is a labor of love.

3. Poems can be revised.

This may be obvious to you, but to me, it was not as clear. In my younger years, when I would write poetry, I would just write one "perfect" draft and leave it as is. But I've come to learn that revision of poetry is actually the best part. The first draft is just a journal of thoughts laid out in a manner different than prose. But then to sit back down with the poem and re-read it, and have the liberty to re-write it, adds a whole new level to what you are creating. It does not always end how it started. But it makes a better poem. And it is therapeutic in its own right to be able to actually digest the journaled feelings you have written so artfully. Revision does not mean that your poem was bad to begin with. It just means that, like anything else in the world, it could always use some tweaking and improvement.

So let me leave you with a poem.

I will leave with you one of the many fruits of my labor. Thank you.

What If?

It is standing on the edge of every possible cliff.

You stare down at all of the possibilities,

praying only for a parachute.

Then, you may descend into the wished reality.

It is all at once far and near.

On your tongue, and yet a galaxy away.

You are in the center of one thousand oceans.

All at once, begging to drown or be saved.

Yet, you float just enough to stay alive,

While every ship remains painfully on the horizon.

You are surrounded by your own iniquities.

You are suffocated by the world’s faults.

You are all at once,

right there

and

the furthest away you can be.