The Many Dances of Poetry

Some poems are lively like Macarena, fast hokey-pokey or watusi. Others make you laugh like the Texas two-step, or hokey pokey, so cutesy. Detailed poets can creative a missive that cha-cha-chas or jitterbugs. Big rule followers maybe cringe when they read some that mugs. Many seem as familiar to this Iowa girl as a barn, line, or square dance. Others are hot as mambo, rumba, taking an unexpected heart-leaping chance. Some are as proper as a minuet or fox trot, maybe even a prissy stuck-up waltz. Hiding true feelings, honesty, and the writer’s variety of unshared, secret faults. Yes, poetry is like any other kind of art, when you get it alone, and to yourself. Some delight our souls, and make us dance, others sit forever high upon a shelf. Many times I think “I wish I had thought of that!” when I read a wonderful poem. To me, poetry has a rhythm, a cadence, and always, and forever a unique dance of her own.