Well I suppose it started as a child with seeing them as funny short stories that had a beat and a rhythm. Another dimension to story telling and as most of the poems I heard seemed to be funny at that age I have an association with feeling happy and poetry. I also liked the fact you could learn them quite easily and they were, therefore, always with you to help a moment pass or to amuse yourself and others.
As a teen I loved the ability to find emotions in them. To express my teenage angst and see that others suffered, as I believed, I did. You could rant at the injustice and tyranny of the adult word and vent all that pent frustration and longing.
As an adult all those aspects are still there. Some of my best memories of being a parent are linked to quiet times with J and a good book of silly or funny poem, sharing that joy, fun and hearing him start to have preferences and remembering the ones he liked. I am still drawn to emotive poems, poems that move and stir your soul, that make you feel. I don't wallow in them like I did as a teen but the memories they evoke are not all bad ones and it's good to laugh at the person I was as well. But mainly for me as an adult devotee of poetry it's the language and the rhythm of the words and the pictures in my mind that they paint. It is such a personal and emotional form that it is like touching the mind of the poet - even more so than other forms of literature. They are literary photographs - catching that moment, that feeling and that sense of self knowing.
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