Tuesday

It was National Poetry Day last Thursday. BBC Breakfast celebrated it with some terrible rhyming guff. They also had Ian McMillan on (who else? If it's poetry invite IM on) who said that to rhyme was a deep seated instinct in humans. I disagree with him. It is rhythm and word sounds which touch us emotionally through reverberating with our own bodies' tick-tock. It doesn't have to be rhyme.Often-times the rhyme gets in the way.

Poetry is heightened language. It is the heart beat, the in-out of a breath. It is something that speaks to us and allows us to go, ugh, someone feels as I do, I feel connected. Yes, of course, there is room for things that make us laugh, that humorously play with rhyme, but these are ephemeral, they are passing. It is the poetry that speaks to our souls which has roots and staying power.

Here is my offering for the day:

I turned a corner,
chasing sunshine trapped in rain,
and caught a rainbow.