Poetry & Hives
On a television show, I think it was “Law & Order,” one of the main characters said, “Life’s a funny old dog.” And so it is. And poems are funny old dogs. My purpose for writing them changes a little from time to time.
Over the last few years, my poems have taken on stronger feelings about some subjects. There is a new challenge, a sense of time going by too quickly, a stronger-than-ever feeling that I am certain about less than I ever have been. I still wrestle the lifetime topics:
Love, Politics, Romance, Racism, Sex, Beauty. But, add to them the frustrations and fears of becoming anonymous, invisible, alarmingly wrinkled, abandoned, lonely, and alone. The terrors and wonder of childhood are memories, the terrors of aging in an ever-more-violent- war-torn world are very present in my current work.
I am disgusted by the present oligarchy in the current White House and in America and I am more angry than ever seeing the little I can do about it. If my poems are read, I hope someone with more influence than I have can change the way this country still confronts every difficulty with greed, violence, with war. I continue to believe that poems can help somehow, but I’m never certain how.
I still write about how years and decades and centuries pass and women are STILL judged by their bodies, their faces, their hair styles, their clothing, their years. It is still a problem. Feminism has helped with some things, not so much with those shallow judgments.
I have written about God––how “we pray to a God we do not love for those we do love”– about temples, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, seekers, those who deny, those who embrace. I write about a kind of God–a power–a mentor–a clockmaker–a joker–ANYONE/THING bigger and better than ourselves to guide us from this ever-darkening universe into wisdom and peace.
My purpose for poetry? This world gives me hives and the only way I relieve the itch is to write poems. It’s great if they come out in books and magazines, but the relief from that itch has become the most driving force of all.
So, I invite you to join me on a road trip of high strangeness, wonder, loneliness, love, and…well, the whole damn thing. We’ll search out the “funny old dog” and hope not to come away with fleas.
I have two new collections available to my readers. In the first of my newest collection, NEVER COMPLETELY AWAKE , I address the dream-like quality of our lives. In the second of the newest, TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME, I walk beside my Selves and my readers’ Selves on our various paths. I find myself, at this time of my maturity, in constant wonder at the way things which have previously seemed so real, become something like a book I once read or a movie I once saw. NEVER COMPLETELY AWAKE from Deerbrook Editions and TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME from Unsolicited Press are both available for purchase.
You may purchase them at my Bookstore, enjoy the poems and let me know, afterward, what you think.
Email me at martinanewberry@gmail.com.