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Unleash Your Inner Poet
A column and illustrations by Ryn Gargulinski

Everyone is born a poet. Everyone is born with the potential to be a mass murderer, too, but that's a different story altogether. To unleash the poet within is a heck of a lot safer and, I am sure of it, much more fun. There is no better time than now, since April is National Poetry Month.

Our poetic fancies are connected at birth, like an amibical cord. It's not unlike Wordsworth's notion that children come down directly from heaven with star beams still attached. Or Blake's vision that we are all born with innocence, wide open eyes and a willingness to thrive on this vast earthly playground. The world takes care of that right quick. It's the world that corrupts and warps, giving way to cynicism and disgust. But it's the very same world that gives rise to ripe subject matter conducive to poetry.

You can write a poem about just about anything. I recently participated in a Children's Poetry Day at I.S. 62 in Brooklyn. I was not at all surprised but very pleased with the poems the children created. They wrote about family, the color red, nature and love. There was also the "mandatory" poem about September 11. I was tickled to share some of my own work.

One question that kept cropping up is if my poems were based on real life. "Did that really happen?" they asked, incredulous when I read a rhyming ditty about two murdered parakeets. "Did you really take the wrong train to Queens?" they asked after another. Yes, my friends, this stuff did happen... but I also told them not to forget about that charming concept of "poetic license" which gives leeway to enhance, elaborate and -- the fun part -- exaggerate a tad. These were sixth graders in the throngs of their creativity, proving you are never too young or old to begin.

I wrote my first poem myself when I was about seven. As my poem Dogpatch reads: "Ever since / I could pick up a / pen or a crayon / -- as fate may have it -- / I was prone to create / to express myself." I don't remember what my first poem was about but I do recall that I was constantly writing about cats and dead things (sometimes one in the same). You can write about shoelaces, about the garter snake that bit you in the garage, about Quaker Oats cereal. Some of my deepest poems are simply about something that happened that day that's examined in a whole new light.

So my challenge to you this month to do at least one poetic thing a day. You could check out one of the zillions of readings (poetic license here) that take place all over New York City. A great place to nab a schedule is on the poetz.com website, the creation and labor of love of fellow poet Jackie Sheeler. That's one thing you will note about poets, we are all loving what we do!

If you think you don't have time to check out a reading, make the time. If you don't pick your priorities, after all, someone else will. That someone else usually ends up being a slave driver boss or a needy neighbor so I highly suggest picking your own.

Surely you could find time enough at least to pick up a poetry magazine, fiddle through the stacks at Barnes & Noble or the library, or surf online for poetry sites. (Some of my own work is available at ryngargulinski.com.)

Finally, try writing your own poem. Poetry is not a vocation reserved for a chosen few who spew out laments on a drunken barstool like Bukowski or Baudelaire. Nor must you isolate yourself on the top floor of a rickety house, sending down baskets of homemade brownies to neighborhood kids on a rope through the window a la Emily Dickinson. If you don't believe me, try it. (Penning a poem -- not roping down brownies.) Writing a poems is not as hard as it may seem.

It does not have to be elaborate. Neither does it have to involve pulling your hair out or researching what rhymes with the word "orange" (since nothing rhymes with "orange"). Merely take a step back and look at something a little differently. Perhaps browse through some Langston Hughes for inspiration. Start reading the Poetry in Motion on the train. Rhyme a phrase or two with "burnt toast." I'll leave it up to you. After all, my friend, you are the poet....you were born that way!

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Visit - www.ryngargulinski.com.

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