Every Day Is a Poem by Jacqueline Suskin (manga ereader txt) 📗

the way your front door is shaped with a curve of quality redwood, or the giant brilliance of the moon rising. Let awe find you in a singular detail. Attach this mighty feeling to a string of thoughts, and then write about it all freely. Fill up at least a page, and don’t worry about editing just quite yet. This loose paragraph of inspired language could end up a rough draft for a poem. Awe is meant to overflow, and if we let it arrive on paper, we’ll be able to see it all around us that much more clearly.

Housemates

Pierre Talón lives

in the kitchen,

close to the kettle

with an invisible web.

His brothers and sisters

share the same name.

Long glass-like legs

and dark teardrop bodies.

Penelope is on the front porch,

blending with the potted plant,

her green abdomen longer each day,

her hind legs like mechanical armor.

Pierre Talón catches the flies

and Penelope reminds me

to pause, peering between blossoms.

The spider never leaves, just changes

corners and sizes, and dodges the steam

when I make tea. The grasshopper

greets me for months, until one day

she sheds her skin and leaves me

with a perfect paper version of herself.

What inspires your sense of awe?

POETIC MINDSET TIP

YOUR AWE CAN BE CONNECTIVE

Try applying a mentality of awe when you’re interacting with someone who lives a life very different from yours. Let your awe be the inspiration for a connection. How did they come to believe something that makes you so uncomfortable? What is the root of their behavior? Maybe this person has a dissimilar political view. Maybe they live in a rural town, and you live in a city. Maybe they grew up practicing a particular religion, and you didn’t. These are the big facts that surround the difference between you, but maybe this contrast can be intriguing instead of off-putting? When I find myself on a disparate page from someone else, I try not to close up. I try to lean in to discovery. It’s frequently these occasions that surprise me the most and give me new insight.

When I let myself stay curious about another person’s point of view instead of shutting down, I’m challenged to see with a new lens—and that feels creative. What would I have overlooked if I hadn’t led with a sense of reverential respect? For example, through Poem Store, I developed very unlikely friendships that are still a huge part of my life.

From a familial bond with a timber baron to a deep camaraderie with a wealthy businessman, I found myself open to all kinds of folks I might normally shut out if I weren’t in the mode of poetic openness.

Poetry helped us bridge the gap and

see where our contrasting ideas actually

overlapped in themes of family, love, trust,

inventiveness, and hope.

These relationships continue to teach me how to develop compassionate language and an availability for dialogue that focuses on similarities, respect, and humanity, as opposed to difference, disdain, and judgment.

Letting your interest in a person’s inner world outweigh your differences could have unifying results. Awe is often the key to the similarities we all share. It’s our curiosity that links us, and these connections can cause the largest transformations.

chapter 2

MAKE MEANING

I have always believed, and I still

believe, that whatever good or

bad fortune may come our way we

can always give it meaning and

transform it into something else.

—HERMANN HESSE

One of the most incredible things about being human is the fact that we’re able to appoint our own definitions and explanations for existence. We can base our interpretations on logical science, on dreamy mysticism, or even on gut instinct. Because we’re the ones asking questions and finding answers, we’re the ones who get to determine the meaning that we live by.

MEANING IS

A CHOICE.

It’s a fascinating process because I know that I’m the one who adds significance to what is otherwise meaningless. This is the incredible skill of the human mind. We use our personal sets of data, balanced with our access to information, and nominate what we deem most meaningful. The trick is to fully be aware of your choices. This awareness of preference will enable you to respect the infinite possible designs of meaning that make sense for others. My meaning is wholly unique when held up next to yours, and the potential for my meaning to grow and shift is endless.

What’s valuable to you isn’t random; it’s

a crafted lens that you see through, that

you add to and take away from willingly,

throughout your lifetime.

You can delve into the details surrounding you and measure the might of sacredness in each. You can make the street sign sacred if you want to. Anything can be holy. When someone says over and over that they believe the rose quartz signifies unconditional love, it starts to hold this charge and is defined by it. We choose talismans that hold the power of our repetition. This repetition creates significance.

For me, a pencil is holy. I’ve assigned great meaning to the object, so that whenever I see one on my desk or discarded on the sidewalk, my eyes nearly well up. I find it to be the perfect balance of useful and beautiful, simple and purposeful. I have a pencil tattooed on my forearm. I choose to see it as a sacred object because I’m a writer, because I feel so moved by the creation of something that helps humans put words on a page, because I appreciate sleek, utilitarian design, and because I want to give the pencil consequence instead of just using it as an object that I don’t notice.

EXERCISE FOR MAKING MEANING

PICK UP A COMMONPLACE OBJECT AND GIVE IT MEANING

Go to your kitchen. Pick up a spoon. Hold it in your hand and look at