DIFFERENT WAYS OF LOOKING, Part 1

Hello, there!

During April (National Poetry Month), I took a course with poet and author Sage Cohen, during which we wrote a poem a day for 30 days. For me, was an adventure in reading lots of poems and experimenting with different styles of poetry. But mostly I worked on honing the one skill that is key to any artist: different ways of looking.

It’s what artists do: examine an object, a person, an experience and ask questions like:

• What does this make me think of?
• What else does this look like/feel like/taste like/sound like? And probably the most important question:
• What’s really going on here?

By looking at something in more than one way, a poet can open up a reader’s imagination, or offer a fresh interpretation. She can make connections the reader may not have thought of, or can probe more deeply into a specific aspect of life.

Here’s one example, where I explore “Ten Ways of Looking at a Candle.” Hope you enjoy it.

Lee Ann