A Poets View ~ Series of Perspectives IV

by Yolanda C.

There's a favorite black and white photograph that comes to mind as I'm writing my viewpoint on poets and poetry. It shows a hard faced, middle age housewife lugging around a shopping cart. Inside is a cheap, framed copy of
Picasso's "The Dream". The first time I saw this photograph, many years ago, I thought the picture was suppose to show the coarseness of the woman
and how art had been cheapen by mass production.

Many years later, I now look at this photograph differently. I like to imagine that the woman in the picture was just hungry for something beautiful in her
life and so she bought the picture, to fill this need.

I see poetry that way now. Like that picture in the supermarket, poetry has always been there to
put in my cart. It's accessible to me, it always has been, not only to read but to write now.

There's so many new voices and techniques in poetry. It just "blows me away." So many ways to be inspired but still find your own voice. The internet has surely made a difference in making the poetry world more reachable. Without the internet, I would not have been able to enroll
in an on-line poetry course offered by a local university. I also would not have been able to have my work reviewed via poetry websites. Like most poets probably, I have a full time job, a house and family to take care of.
My time is more restricted than ever. The internet has enabled me to rediscover the world of poetry and hopefully my place in it.

Yolanda C. is an accomplished poet at both Moontown Cafe and SplashHall Poetry.