If one of the purposes of poetry is to be a 'means of redemption' as has been suggested, another question we might ask of ourselves is 'why do I want to write poetry'? I continue to be amazed by how many people, writers included, who seem to feel that we write poetry as a means of making visible the deep emotions that churn deep inside us. Well, if that is true, what do we make of Wordsworth's Daffodils or Keat's To Autumn for instance?
A friend stopped me on the street last week. I had not seen her for two years, and as we caught up with each other, she told me that she was in a poetry group and really wanted to 'get published and have an ISBN number'. No deep emotional material to expose there then? We will all have different reasons for writing poetry and if we go back to Hart Crane's Bridge and look at my friends reason for writing poetry, we can perhaps see even here the new vistas of Crane and the redemptive purpose in poetry as my friend seeks to turn dreams to reality.
Feel free to post your poem to this blog...you will retain full copyright while giving yourself a hoist up onto the bridge.
Are you on the bridge yet?
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