I know some folks would not agree but sometimes expressing feelings in a poetic form (and publishing them here or in a book) can be theraputic.Here is a poem I wrote in 2012 inspired by the style and subject matter of Seamus Heaney ,the Northern Irish Nobel prize winner,with whom I am a contemporary in age .
STRONG AND SILENT
Fathers of that era
did not hug or touch or
intimate their love.
He was the same
Did he love us, we his
kin, his blood-seed. He
did not say, yet I
believe he did.
He was a provider, for
sure. A taste for beer,
never dissolute and
he smoked as most
working folk, did then.
An adept gardener, his
vegetables supplemented
our meagre rationed diet.
Did he care, he never
said, I’m sure he did.
What made him tick,
deep down, I mean
where only introspective
types like me will
sometimes dig.
It is easy, so easy
to theorise. His
generation, strong
and silent, did not
discuss such things,
especially with his son,
such things were never
done. Maybe..perhaps
with Mum. Feelings
were not shared but
held back, within.
A reservoir of emotions
controlled, withheld
until death shatters
the dam.
Is that why I cried
so, the day he died
and still I wonder..
did I cry for me,
or was it for him?
I am not sure how he would have viewed my becoming a poet,and expressing things (as above) that we were never able to say face to face.
I feel better for sharing these feelings in this form with you my fellow peer poets , my PS workshop friends of a decade in some cases.
Do you , have you , written personal bio poetry similar to my example above.Does it ring a bell?
Was it theraputic for you?
If so , please share the title in your comments to this blog( or in a soupmail if you prefer ) as I would like to read your endeavours in this direction , or am alone on this aspect of our poetic art?