Author: Alexa Fox

I’m in English 203: Poetics, with Dr. Doggett, and lately we’ve been studying the originals, you know, Plato, Aristotle, Shelley, Wordsworth, and analyzing their thoughts on poetry. Originally, poetry was thought to be imitation of life and art, and therefore, a lesser art. Despite their ideas that poetry was lesser, poetry was also seen as divine, through the Oracles of Delphi, but history was also told with poetry. Wordsworth stated that poetry had a way of taking something ordinary and using creativity to make these happenstance events unique. That, I think, was my favorite point made.

Poetry is a way of looking at life and thinking of phrasing it in a way that connects to people. It’s a way of looking at language and the double-meanings and how it applies to people as a whole. We connect through art and how it invokes emotions within us.

Overall, I enjoy writing because, as someone who struggles to connect face to face, I can connect through my words and emotions. I have time to string together my words and thoughts to show what I see and how I feel to show to other people how I see the world. When people find their own thoughts, their own feelings, in the words on the page, they can connect, and that is what I think poetry is. It is the imitation of real life, and there is a divine sense to it, through our means of connecting even when we have never met someone.

Maya Angelou’s “Touched by An Angel”:

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

I was struck by how beautifully written this poem is. Granted, Maya Angelou is known for her skill as a poet, but I loved the grace and elegance in which love is described. Rather than be some everyday event, love is depicted as some holy thing, one that brings about pleasure and pain, something that pushes us to be beyond what we are.

One interesting thing about the poem is the choice of structure. Stanza 1 has six lines, while Stanza 2 has seven, and Stanza 3, eight. Through this, there is a progression that matches the change in content. The first stanza describes humanity, how while alone we are lonely and don’t know what it means to be brave, until first introduced to love, then it moves on to discuss the effects of love and how to liberate ourselves using it, and the third stanza shows the purity of love and how it ultimately frees us. While the first stanza is more constricted, like the topic of people without love, the second stanza mirrors a looseness mirroring the introduction of love; restricted by memories of pain and pleasure, which could potentially hold us back, until the third stanza reveals the ultimate freedom of love and how we are stronger with it.

Another interesting choice Angelou makes is to repeat sounds throughout the poem. While there is no rhyming, which would create almost a singsong sound to the poem, and through that, possibly make the poem sound less mature, adding to the high-pedestaled Love.Through the repetition of sounds, there is a soothing, peaceful feel, which only adds to the idea of loving being a freeing concept.

As far as possible shortcomings, I can’t really think of anything.

Inspiration is a fickle little thing. Sometimes it unfurls like a blossoming flower, an idea taking root. Then there are the times that inspiration trickles in, like rainwater gathering, drip by drip, into a metal bucket. Other times, it’s a little knobby thing like a string just about to unravel, where you go to brush it or pull on it to see if it’s a little cotton ball or a string, and you find more under the little knob. Whatever way you first find it, inspiration can be found in expected and unexpected places.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate things like poetry and writing even more and find my sources of inspiration in things around me. Like a bumblebee bounces from flower to flower, I bounce from inspiration to inspiration as it suits me. Through this, I gather ideas for my collection.

I listen to a wide variety of music, from metal groups to pop groups; Bring Me the Horizon, Sia, Fall Out Boy, Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown, Panic! at the Disco. Lyrics provide multiple creative ways to look at life, twists on ideas, and inspirations for works of my own.

Books are a never-ending barrage of promise, like Slaughterhouse Five, Dear Life, You Suck, Perks of Being a Wallflower. Even fantasy novels provide outlooks on major topics of life and death and the factors of living, and each book is packed with thoughts assuring more inspirations that could lead to personal revelations.

Mythology was also something I was infatuated with as a child, and the retelling of myths was a point of fascination. Daniella Michalleni wrote an untitled poem told from the point of view of Persephone, with a twist on her myth. The idea that myths could be spun like this, that multiple points of views could be explored, different scenarios explained, was interesting.

Film is another fascination, though I wouldn’t call myself a cinephile. Some of my favorite parts of movies are when there is an angled camera shot, and something seemingly insignificant is revealed, but the importance and relevance of what the single shot revealed, like a gun resting on the table, is left to the audience. The idea that so much could be said without saying anything, or by focusing on a seemingly insignificant detail.

Boredom is another source, seeing as you find the oddest things interesting when plagued with it. The smallest flowers or the dewdrops on a pine needle suddenly become pinpoints of words that could work into something.

Also, seeing as I am someone who has not experienced love- at least not the companionate kind I find emotions such as anger or sadness critical in writing, in finding ways to convey how I feel. The intensity of them, the way they buzz in the chest like bumblebees ready to burst out, is nearly overwhelming, until pen meets paper.

Whether looking for it or not, inspiration lies all around us, just waiting to be found.