A little danger is a poetic thing. A little poetry is a dangerous thing. Poetry is a little dangerous. We’re all heard variations on it but in what way is poetry dangerous?
When Robert Frost said, “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat,” what did he mean? How do Frost’s farm life and contemplation of the passing scene and the passage of time take life by the throat? Or is he speaking about how we engage with life in the act of writing poetry? How could that be dangerous?
I keep coming back to that word–dangerous. “To write is to live twice,” Anais Nin tells us. Is menace, then, implicit in the very act of writing?
Is poetry dangerous only for the poet, or is the reader at risk as well? What are the hazards we must consider as we engage with either writing or reading poetry? Sharon Olds observed that, “This creature of the poem may assemble itself into a being with its own centrifugal force.” Is that force, that inevitability, that lack of agency something to fear?
What poems do you consider dangerous? The political? The erotic? The blasphemous? The personal? Where in a poem does the danger lie? The topic? The metaphors? Or is language intrinsically fraught with peril? What poets come to mind?
Come armed with something to write on and with. We shall explore writing beyond the comfort zone.
Karen Blomain, local author and poet, will be hosting writing workshops at the Pages & Places Book Expo at Farley’s Restaurant on Saturday, October 2nd at 2:30pm and 3:30pm.