Wanna read poetry together?

In which the author proposes a reforging of the Dead Poet's Society

tl;dr I’d love to start a poetry club. Each week, a poem and a post about why it’s great. Then we read that poem for the week and come back with our reflections (or maybe move on to the next poem).

I’ve noticed a recurring theme as I’ve been writing these daily pieces. Snatches of poetry keep bubbling to the surface.

Which is funny because I don’t think about poetry much these days, and I certainly haven’t been reading much. I used to memorise poems and tried to broaden my horizons, but I’ve never shown much rigour with it.

My relationship with poetry is like dandelions and concrete cracks. I’m not particularly fertile ground yet whenever I go scratching in the dirt of my inner kingdom, there, waiting patiently, is a line of poetry I haven’t thought about in years.

I’ve bought anthologies over the years and have read my fair share (hell, I’ve even identified as a poet at times in my life). But the truth is, I’ve never mastered reading it. How do you read something which soaks into your bones? It’s not a piece of information you hang on your knowledge web, it’s a hook that snags and embeds itself.

But I have an idea.

I’ve always felt that poetry called for a reading process with more patience than I could muster. It seems more like music than literature; I never know how much I’ll love an album based on the first listen (there are exceptions; I remember Dark Side of the Moon left me giddy with awe the first time I listened).

I digress. My idea: our own little dead poets society. Let’s have a book club, but instead of a book, a poem. We’ll take one poem a week, read it every day, soak in it and share our thoughts at the end of the week.

I want to discover more poetry that worms its way into the depths of my soul. The thing is, I don’t know what poems to pick. Of course, I could choose from the classics, but I have another idea: we take turns picking them.

Okay, I’ve had another idea. So part of the thing with a poem is that it nestles itself in your heart, right? What if the reflection for the week, rather than being me giving some fresh thoughts on your poems, you share why you love that poem? Every week could be a guest post. This could be anonymous if you want, and I would be delighted to chat about it with you and help you write it or whatever you need. What I want is to open up those cracks in the concrete and let more beauty in.

What I envision is sitting down every morning and reading the poem of the week, marinating in it for a couple of minutes and let it breath in me. Do this every day and then, at the end of the week, reflect. I don’t know what form that reflection would take. Maybe it doesn’t need to be anything special. Maybe it’s not about the reflection but about the warmth of the poem. It seems to me it’s a way to give the poem a chance to take root.

Maybe we can throw poems up and vote on them. I don’t know how this would go, I only know that there’s something I value in poetry, and it’s something I’d like to deepen and share. Anyone else interested? Lemme know, and especially lemme know if you have a poem you’d like to share.