On the craft of poetry and purpose of poets

I would like to clarify and elaborate on both the art and the purpose of the poet in the world, the universe, the communitas. What do we write? Why do we write it? For whom do we write? Is there more than writing poetry? Can you not recite, sing, even dance and sing poetry?

A poet ought to know what she writes, & why she writes. A sense of purpose gives gravitas and direction to what otherwise might be elegant fluff.

I write in different styles, more often than not philosophical but also philological. I wish to connect with as seamlessly as possible, the fine arts and maybe even the practical crafts.

I would like to write poetry which will encourage, inspire, enlighten others to become, to be, to do, to think clearly and carefully. In my thinking poetry can be philosophical, political, even scientific, but it is never just poetry.  Poetry is deep as any knowledge, and light as any spirit.

Some times I write simple, other times more complex, more rhythmically, but I strive for variety, which proverbially is the spice of life. Boredom is alien to me, seldom felt and even less realized.  Life is much to interesting to waste let alone be stuck in any boredom more than an occasional fertile ennui.

I have of late been trying my hand at haiku, senryu, and other poetics in that artery, that vein, finding it much more difficult than I would have thought, or had been thinking.

Some times I write in Spanish or French. I like there to be mystery & nature in some of my poetry. For me, life is a mystery, so yes, I could say some of what I write is mystical if not mysterious.  Too, I have experimented in simple verse in Afrikaans, Dutch, and even in Czech.  I would not wish to be forever bounded by the limits of even so wonderful a language as the English of Shakespeare, Dickens, Whitman, and Faulkner.

I have children of mine own, so I do write for children, but I also write for adults, for animals, and even for spirits. I have shared my story telling, reading, and versifying, as well as a love of poetry and song, with my two children, who go by the names Annie Franck and Lil G here on this web site.

 

Some of our favourite children's poets are Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss, the anonymous Mother Goose poets, Carl Sandburg, & Mauric Sendak.  I hope to introduce my children also to Le Petit Prince (French Language Edition): Antoine de Saint-Exupéry &  to the Spanish poet and playwright, Garcia Lorca, whose life was so tragically cut short by fascist murder during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

I am keenly interested in what W illiam Bulter Yeats, poet, playwright, and mystic, born at Sandymount, near Dublin, felt and thought regarding magic and arts, soul and nature. 

 

"I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, and what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magic illusions in the visions of truth in the depths of the minds when the eyes are closed."



I hope to share with you, gentle readers, but also to encourage you, each one of you, to write, to think, to versify, to sing and to live poetry.

John Tarik Walker, a.k.a café ground zer0

Notes:

 

1. http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/y/yeats_w_b.html

 

2. http://books.google.com/books?id=b3Id8wrgKrYC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=Yeats+magic+&source=web&ots=WunyTH6cuP&sig=xkqCxgWzSZ9ucsH8TNUS4G2EOt8&hl=en