“Finding Poetry in Everyday Life,” by Laurie Wagner Buyer

I know the talented poet Laurie Wagner Buyer both from Women Writing the West and Story Circle Network. Laurie Wagner Buyer can be found at the website named after her, or Working Words Guide.–JGR

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Finding Poetry in Everyday Life
by Laurie Wagner Buyer

We usually find what we look for. We always see things when we pay attention. Inspiration isn’t that elusive; it comes when we take time to stop, look and listen. Any poem begins with being observant and then allowing the experience to soak into our sensibilities. Only when we take time to absorb and appreciate the event can we begin to create with words.

A poem can be born from a scrap of overheard conversation or a glimpse of something unusual in the natural world. I find poems when I’m sitting in the coffee shop or while strolling through town to go the library or yoga class. I often discover the most surprising poems when hiking alone, when I allow the energetic powers of All That Is to enter my consciousness through the pervasive silence and stillness found in the wide open landscapes.

Breathing is poetry. So is dancing and singing. Even cleaning the floors or washing the windows or doing the dishes contain the seeds for poetic generation. The challenge for me as a poet is not being inspired or finding ideas, it is committing time to the process of writing them down. Many poems have escaped my grasp because I didn’t stop long enough to put words on paper (or the computer).

I used to feel regret over escaped or lost poems. Now, however, I understand that the poems I have not captured still run or fly free throughout the Universe. At some point other poets will reach out, grab them, and cast them into beautiful words and images. What I don’t write, I can read, and what I never read I can still experience simply by being alive.