In the beginning, there was verse. Before people had anything to write with, or on, they found stories easier to remember when they set the words to a beat, and possibly a tune.
And yet, most readers today find poetry harder to follow than prose. They don't get it, or they think of it as merely ornamental writing. A poet closely weaves meaning and form together. A poet chooses a word for any and all of its meanings but also for its ambiguities, for its potential to mislead, and sometimes for the pure sound of it. A poem is coded, but when it is well-written, the reader leaps right into its meaning.
I usually pick up prose, but sometimes an event or even a gimmick hustles me into poetry. It was the strange title that started me on Interior Decoration, published by Women Unlimited. Once inside it, I found fury and beauty, from Amrita Bharati, Prathibha Nandakumar, Kondepudi Nirmala. I will dip into it for years, but just one line made it sing the day I picked it up: “In him the hungry haste / Of rivers, in me the ocean's tireless / Waiting.” (That's Kamala Das, An Introduction.)
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