Susan Jackson: Poet Behind the Poetry

Poet Behind the Poetry, CKP’s special blog series in honor of National Poetry Month, looks behind the scenes of a writer’s creative life.

Being a poet is like talking to the world, like listening deeply, a continuous conversation with what is.  Perhaps the only difference between a poet and someone else is that a poet writes it all down.  A poet sees a flock of birds overhead or hears a clever phrase, then uses them as a springboard, a portal into existence.

The Tao Te Ching says “…This is practicing eternity.”  Writing may be on the grand scale of love and death or simply noticing the color of a wheelbarrow:

So much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

William Carlos Williams says what cannot be said.  How much depends?  Dr. Williams says “So much” – here the little word “so” hits a chord that takes the reader to another realm.  Anyone might rush by such a mundane sight as left over rainwater on a gardening tool in the chicken yard… and yet this moment of seeing has intrigued readers for decades.  Being a poet is like living in the immediacy where everything and nothing join, then somehow using words to create an offering.