inspiration creeps along

When I was in college I took a handful of poetry workshop classes my freshman and sophomore year. My junior year I was neck to nuts buried in my journalism classes, and that creative outlet trickled into some arts & ethics classes in the J-School. But there was always something about those poetry workshops that drew me...and so my senior year I waitlisted a few more, but never got back in.

The prof that shepherded these workshops was brilliant. He was old and white haired and mustachioed, and he wore old cableknit fishermen's sweaters with patches on the shoulders and elbows. And he was too tall and angular, but not bent. Not yet. And so he towered over us. And his voice...and the cadence of it...was hypnotic.

I forget from time to time that poetry is meant to be read aloud. That if you don't read your own work aloud from time to time, it winds up lacking.

Take the following poem for example:

It's "The Hurt Locker" by Brian Turner.

Turner's poetry is mostly military in nature... and this one actually had a hand in inspiring the recent-ish movie of the same name.

Read the poem quietly to yourself.

Not bad, right?

Now listen to it via this link: From the Fishouse

Note the catches in Turners voice. The rumble. The cadence.

Suddenly this poem has life and grit.

And this one poem that I stumbled upon via a brief mention in a NYTimes.com article... This one poem that was written years ago by someone I never met and will never meet... It makes me want to write.

Sometimes inspiration comes in the smallest and oddest corners of life.

When you're least expecting it.

*edit* I found him! The poetry prof - he still teaches down at IU's English Dept. [insert deep-seated sigh of relief here]