I have had a love / hate relationship with poetry my whole life. My dad used to quote poems and they were all pretty cool and made sense - Snow-Bound by
John Greenleaf Whittier, September by
Helen Hunt Jackson,The
Children’s Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Trees by
Joyce Kilmer. I can still recite lines from all of these today.
In school, teachers made us interpret poems, some of which made no sense at all, some were a lot of fun. But school made poems into work much as it made The Red Badge of Courage, The Grapes of Wrath, and Great Expectaions into work. I wasn't against work when I was a school boy but it was so much more fun working at solving a geometry proof or a physics problem than trying to understand an abstruse poem. I suspect lack of a basic set of laws and theorems for interpreting poems may have tainted my views a bit.
On occasion, as an adult, I have picked up poetry books in book stores and after trying to read a few I realized that I didn't have a clue what the poems were saying. Those made me feel inferior and I really don't think that is what the poet was trying to do. But I also would stumble across poems that resonated with me to the point that I read them over and over again - Joseph Stroud's Homage: Doo-Wop is one such poem. These poems convinced me that I could probably do that if I ever had anything I really wanted to say.
When I was thirty I became interested in writing in general. True, I had done a bit of writing before that – things like my MS and PhD dissertations, several technical papers and reports, and an occasional nastygram — but I had never written anything that would fall in the arts and humanities arena except possibly for a bunch of love letters to my fiancée. So... at thirty I became focused on learning about mystery and thriller writing (you know, Dan Fortune, Lew Archer, and James Bond). Poetry was still not something I considered writing.
In school, teachers made us interpret poems, some of which made no sense at all, some were a lot of fun. But school made poems into work much as it made The Red Badge of Courage, The Grapes of Wrath, and Great Expectaions into work. I wasn't against work when I was a school boy but it was so much more fun working at solving a geometry proof or a physics problem than trying to understand an abstruse poem. I suspect lack of a basic set of laws and theorems for interpreting poems may have tainted my views a bit.
On occasion, as an adult, I have picked up poetry books in book stores and after trying to read a few I realized that I didn't have a clue what the poems were saying. Those made me feel inferior and I really don't think that is what the poet was trying to do. But I also would stumble across poems that resonated with me to the point that I read them over and over again - Joseph Stroud's Homage: Doo-Wop is one such poem. These poems convinced me that I could probably do that if I ever had anything I really wanted to say.
When I was thirty I became interested in writing in general. True, I had done a bit of writing before that – things like my MS and PhD dissertations, several technical papers and reports, and an occasional nastygram — but I had never written anything that would fall in the arts and humanities arena except possibly for a bunch of love letters to my fiancée. So... at thirty I became focused on learning about mystery and thriller writing (you know, Dan Fortune, Lew Archer, and James Bond). Poetry was still not something I considered writing.
Now jump forward 30 years: I turned sixty and started to
contemplate my existence while at that same time my attention span became much
abbreviated due to a short circuit in my brain. Hence, poems, short essays, and
sundry musings were things I could finish before a squirrel ran by and grabbed
my attention or I was distracted by a bright shiny object. Hence, I started studying poetry. I took a few classes, started buying poetry books, and read those poems that historically had made me feel inferior.
A funny thing happened. I started to think that I understood some of those abstruse poems. But I really started liking the fact that you could very succinctly express yourself with poetry. You could even, if you were a little obscure, actually say some of the things you might never say to a person, or about a subject, publicly. Also, writing poetry caused me to be more observant of people and my surroundings. But, best of all, writing poetry caused me to stop and really try to understand myself.
A funny thing happened. I started to think that I understood some of those abstruse poems. But I really started liking the fact that you could very succinctly express yourself with poetry. You could even, if you were a little obscure, actually say some of the things you might never say to a person, or about a subject, publicly. Also, writing poetry caused me to be more observant of people and my surroundings. But, best of all, writing poetry caused me to stop and really try to understand myself.
My new book, Reflections
in a Boomer’s Eye – Poems and Musings, is a compilation of many of the
writings that I put on paper over the past five years. I have tried to reflect
and focus on the experiences of my life as a Baby Boomer. I was born in
1950 and graduated high school and went off to college in the explosive year of
1968. I grew up in small
towns in Illinois where I developed a fascination with science, the trombone,
nature, and girls.
The resulting collection of poems, essays, and musings
includes memories and reflections of being a free-range child of the Fifties, a
restrained teenager in the Sixties, a college student in the Seventies, and a
rambunctious retiree in the Tens. My hope is that at least one line or poem plucks a nerve or a heart string of my gentle readers. I have tried to make all of my writings accessible but, I suspect, that occasionally I might have drifted into abstruseness.
This book is now available and can be previewed and purchased from Amazon.
Several of the reviews bring up the fact that this book of poetry was written by an engineer. In defense of my profession, I must say that engineers are scientists who are also creative. My poem “Still Hopeful” starts with the famous quote by Theodore von Kármán:
“The scientist describes what is; the engineer creates what never was.”
One of my favorite reviews on my Amazon book page is by Paul S. Carney says, "Engineers create all sorts of things, including poetry."
So, even if you don't read poetry or have been afraid of it since high school English class, give it a try. Check it out and see if anything resonates with you.
