Poetry weaves through my life as a practice of presence. As the 17th century Japanese poet, Bashō taught his students, one should meditate upon the object until one “becomes” the object and then, quickly write the poem. In a similar way, I contemplate states of mind, emotions, relationships, and situations that I’ve experienced, in order to express them in the charged language of poetry. Poetry is a way of going deeper into the heart of life itself. It’s a way of listening, seeing, and fundamentally, of being in the world. The poet keenly attunes herself to the odd juxtaposition of things and events.
The expression, then of the written poem, becomes the connection of the poet’s life with the reader’s. I dream of a “common language” as the twentieth-century American poet, Adrienne Rich has said. I dream of a personal language that touches the inner space of the reader, the space that is deeper than beliefs, feelings, or even the physical self.