An Ode to Poetry

April is National Poetry Month. (photo/jennifergrassmanmusic.com)

“Dear Kasy Long, congratulations! We are happy to announce your acceptance into our literary journal. We would like to publish your poetry in our upcoming edition!”

If the high-school Kasy knew I was publishing poetry in various literary journals, I think she would laugh. I have always loved literature and writing, though my preference since the very beginning of my writing career has been fiction. In fact, in high school, I couldn’t understand poetry nor write poetic lines in an elegant manner. I hated poetry. When I think about how I used to groan or roll my eyes at poetry, I laugh.

Poetry humor. (photo/jantoo.com)

I was so naïve.

While I still love to write short stories, poetry has found its way into a very special place in my heart. “Ars poetica” [Latin for ‘the art of poetry’] is stamped permanently on my heart. 

April is National Poetry Month, therefore this blog post is an ode to the beautiful literary genre.

Poetry has allowed me to discover things about the world, people and myself. Poets view the world in a different way. We hear sound in words. Yes, words have a sound and rhythm to them. We see beauty in ordinary objects, like birds or rainstorms. We take these objects and transform them into characters in a mere ten-line poem.

I never knew poetry could have such a large impact on my life, yet it has. I am having poems published in literary journals. The more poetry I read, the more I become inspired to write. The more I read, the more I learn. You never stop learning how to become a better poet. 

Thanks to poets like Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bishop, I have discovered multiple ways to write poetry. 

Below, I am reproducing three poems I will have published in upcoming literary journals. I could talk about poetry all day, but what you really need to do is read the beautiful literary genre.

Cheers to poetry! Thank you for being wonderful.

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Midnight in Amish Country

What does moonlight sound like?

A festival of crickets signaling

the far-off barks of watch dogs.  

An owl hooting in the autumn night.

Logs crackling, hymns humming, gentle praying.

Falling ginger leaves and skipping pebbles

across the Amish family’s pond.

See the lamplight of the courting couple?

They listen to the moonlight, too.

~KL

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Supernova Spectacle

The spaceship points toward the stars—

allowing the yellow rays of light to welcome

friends of the vast black space.

The explosion of colors frightens the crew,

but then the magic begins.

Purples kiss pinks, golds embrace reds.

Stars shy away from the supernova spectacle,

the wisps of gas, the collection of debris,

the Veil Nebula.

The astronaut wishes to change the direction

of the spaceship’s desired mission—

taking the crew to the point where the colors

surround bodies, paint into eyes,

absorbing the abundant space.

Yet the direction cannot change.

The mission must continue to Mars—

the land of possibility, the new Apollo landing.

So the astronaut must say good-bye

to the colors, the spectacle,

the once in a lifetime vision.

~KL

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Sunset on Sunset Avenue

Just beyond the sloping hill I see the brown brick home. The large yard reminds me of summer nights playing baseball, catching fireflies, and riding bikes. Falling leaves clutter the ground, the colors of fire, apricots and tangerines, a touch of honey, a dash of pale green. Strolling along Sunset Avenue, I breathe in the crisp autumn air, the distant scent of finished bonfires, smoke and ash come to swallow the fresh air. I listen to the cows mooing from their home in a pen down the hill—their calls breaking my silence, my composed mood, my thoughts of childhood memories. The trees above sway in the cool wind – the trees I spent many days as a child climbing, racing to the imaginary finish line, though never quite reaching that point. The sky beyond those trees paints colors for me – teal, gold, ginger, and pink. Clouds part for the colors, sharing the vast space. My home is a figure in the sunset’s painting, and I—the moving part in the artist’s craft.

~KL

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Thank you for reading my poetry! This is just a small fraction of my growing poetry collection.

-KJL-