The Poetry Goes On - Barbara Jean Hicks

It isn't Friday, when I normally post, but it is the last day of April, 2014--National Poetry Month. I don't want to miss out on one last chance to celebrate poetry before getting back on track with my series on book promotion in May.

Last Thursday marked National Poem In Your Pocket Day. I celebrated by hosting a poem sharing event at my local Barnes & Noble. It was a small gathering, a half dozen of us--fewer than I'd hoped for. But I realized as I left the store after the event that the few people who came were part of my "tribe."

We were diverse of age and gender and background, from an eight year old girl who read Shel Silverstein to a well known local painter in his sixties who read Charles Bukowski to an East German immigrant who was there in support of his poet-wife, even though he never studied poetry and feels no affinity for it. (Though I think hearing Bukowski read aloud may have changed his mind--Bukowski being a poet extremely accessible to people who don't think they have an affinity for poetry.) A young mother read Rumi. The book store manager read Emily Dickinson. The East German immigrant's wife read original poetry, including one she wrote for her wedding decades ago. I read John Masefield.

But we were all in the same room because we love poetry. We love what poetry says and how it says it. We love how it makes us feel. We love that it makes instant friends out of strangers.

Here's what I carried in my pocket last Thursday. I memorized it when I was in sixth or seventh grade. I quote lines from it during my school visits. I learned to sail because of it. I read it in unison with my father not long before he died. It's part of me. Amazing what a poem can be.

SEA FEVER

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking,

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

        --John Masefield

 

National Poetry Month is over for another year. But the poetry is never over. The poetry goes on, and it sustains us--the members of my tribe.

Barbara Jean Hicks is a regular guest contributor to Tales From the Rushmore Kid. She is a credentialed teacher in K-12 English/Language Arts and the award-winning author of seven picture books for children, including her most recent, AN AMAZING SNOWMAN, which along with A SISTER MORE LIKE ME is based on characters from the 2013 Oscar-winning animated feature film from Disney, FROZEN.

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