Poetry is available to everybody.
What does it mean to live and write the poetic life? A poetic life is a life of receptivity where we observe, feel, and consider our lives and our world, treating things as “we are” and not as “they are.”
How can we be more receptive?
1) Welcome accidents and mistakes
2) Free-write
3) Write to different styles of music
4) Invite topics (don’t judge or dismiss what comes as a topic)
Pay attention! All we need is to be a little curious. “Being” is the space where poetry happens. Tune in to your being and start writing. Don’t try to force it—write what resonates with you.
Poetry lives on the edge where comfort and discomfort meet. Pain (such as with bad relationships, etc) is a natural starting place because it demands our attention. If you feel discomfort, let poetry give you an outlet to your discomfort (impatience/anger) and find out what is underneath. Or discover something new in what is familiar in your life and circumstances—it’s not “where” we are, it’s “who” we are in any given moment.
Sage Cohen is author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry, forthcoming from Writer’s Digest Books, and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World, Queen of Wands Press. Her poems appear in journals and anthologies including Poetry Flash, Oregon Literary Review, blueoregon.com and San Francisco Reader. In 2006, she won first prize in the Ghost Road Press poetry contest.
Sage has served as managing editor and monthly columnist for Writers on the Rise since 2006. She teaches Poetry for the People, an online poetry class, and has taught at the Willamette Writers and Pacific Northwest Writers Association conferences. This year, Maria Schneider, Editor of Writer’s Digest, decreed Sage the official Poet Laureate of The Writer’s Perspective blogroll. Sage holds a MA in creative writing from New York University where she was awarded a New York Times Foundation fellowship. Visit her at http://www.sagesaidso.com/.
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