As a child, my mother recited verses from Os Lusiadas and some of the hundreds of Portuguese folk stories and poems she still, at 95, knows by heart. I’ve always been captivated by poetry. At Bard, the MFA program brought me into daily contact with writers and poets.

The sound of language fascinates me. In poetry there is a coming together of the sound of language with meaning. Meaning found in the act of writing. Meaning transmitted as a special form of the spoken word.

Breath

It takes
difficulty breathing
difficulty speaking

To
feel the
need

The power of speech and the
desire grows
to be inspired

To breathe in
air and put down
words

That can be turned back
into breath
through speech.

It takes trouble
to feel the power
of speech

A former
of
the world

To lose
that inhibition
– a stutter and a hiccough –

In one word
one thought
that…

*

Poetry
any poetic writing
is a struggle

To bring
the word
back to speech

To
structure
breath

To plan…
wrought speech
not simply expelled

A
spoken breath
in vocal virtuosity.

Words have
the power
to lead us to action

To activities
that drop us
into contingency

From out
of the
realm of what can be.

I am
wary of that
power

Over myself
words have
and can give

To me
or some other
over me.

Fidelity to poesy
seems to be
the only defense.

Crafting
written speech
rehearsed breathing

There is
freedom
from controlling

Freedom
from coercion
– internal and external –

Not telling anyone
what
to do

But asking
them to
listen

To
take in
breath

Through
the sound
of words

Heard
or imagined
in voice.

The multitude is not torn this way

The Plenitude not done violence