THE MAGIC OF POETRY - #BLOGCHATTEREBOOK

The month of April loomed before me, a whole month of writing for the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge where a whole group of writers would be racking their brains to come out with apt themes – 26 posts in 31 days. It seemed a tall order. The Blogchatter Team was on their toes trying to motivate all their writers, suggesting topics, explaining rules and juggling ideas, and in general, trying to keep up the enthusiasm through videos and blog posts.

How could I make my posts different? Three days before the challenge began, a light bulb went off in my mind. Why not do something I dearly loved? Go back to my days of Literature? At once, a line of images sparked off in my mind – all those beautiful words that had been around for centuries, words that could not be said better. That is how my title took shape – Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s quote was the inspiration.

“Poetry: The Best Words In the Best Order”

The poems spilled over as I tried to choose the ones which I loved, and the ones which had inspired me all through. For a whole month, I ate, drank and slept poetry. My first poem was, without doubt, the beautiful ‘Abou Ben Adhem’, which talks of the importance of loving one’s fellow beings, so apt today in a world where “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” (W B Yeats)

It was an exhilarating experience as I lost myself in the minds of the Romantics like Keats and Shelley. The American poets like Emily Dickenson, Robert Frost and the inimitable Henry Wadsworth Longfellow swooped in and out of my imagination. The Indian poets were not far behind, beguiling me with their poetic narratives and exquisite imagery. The poems of Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu, Nissim Ezekiel and Sugatha Kumari entranced me as I wandered through their realms of imagination. Sara Teasdale and Christina Rosetti meandered back into my memory as though they had never left.

 One poem that got several eyeballs was the immortal ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling which is almost a treatise on how to live life. Of course, the other poem that got readers chuckling was “You Are Old, Father William” by Lewis Carroll. Another was the irreverent ‘Ultimatum’ by Dorothy Parker. 

However, the experience was even better when it came to discovering new poems by poets I had not heard about so far. Be it ‘Earthly Pride’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox consisting of just four significant lines, ‘Human Nature’ by Eugene Field or ‘Quaint Spring’ by Georg Trakl, they were all equally compelling. 

 However, the one poem that got me thinking was ‘We Wear the Mask’ by Paul Laurence Dunbar, which spoke of people wearing masks to hide their true feelings but seemed so relevant to the present scenario as well.

The two alphabets that took me time were ‘Q’ (Quaint Spring – mentioned earlier) and ‘Z’ for which I got the most unexpected and wonderful poem I could have thought of. It was called ‘Zinnias and Tea’ and was a tribute to one of the bravest women ever to grace this world – Helen Keller. The poet, Randall Davis Barfield, spoke of how after death, Helen would be able to see, hear and speak, having gained everything she had been deprived of on earth.

Turning this volume into an eBook was an act of almost reverence, for within were the minds I had always admired, words that had resonated within me and the whole experience left me with a feeling of deep joy. 

I thank Team Blogchatter and every member for having dredged this book out of me with their support and encouragement. I also thank all my fellow writers and friends who offered valuable comments and wrote reviews. May there be many such challenges that bring us all fulfillment!

May the Magic of Poetry continue to enthrall us all!

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