First Memory

May Swenson once said that poetry is...
based in a craving to get through the curtains
of things as they appear, to things as they are,
and then into the larger, wilder space of things
as they are becoming.

I started this poetry posting a while ago, but never followed through with it. I'm reinstating "Walt Whitman Was Here" because poetry is a sort of fuel for me. It calms me and reminds me that there are so many things in life worth living for, if only we notice them. I am a poetry geek. I love it. And I have found that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they react to a poem. So welcome back Walt Whitman, we're glad you stopped by.

When I first read Louise Glück, I was in my first ever poetry composition class in college. I had to do a "special focus" on a modern poet and live with her/his body of poetry for the semester. I knew very little about Louise Glück, or any modern poet, for that matter. But I chose Glück because A. she'd won a Pulitzer, and B. I wanted to know how to pronounce her last name (it is "Glick," by the way). She was a welcoming host into the world of modern poetry. I owe her a great deal.

"First Memory" is short and succinct and is filled with a truth I learn again and again.

First Memory
Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was--
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.

~ Louise Glück