Among new year resolutions, poetry

It's the new year. We all had our disappointments, our ups and downs in 2006, and some of us might even sigh relief for the horrible things that we can forget and leave behind, to start anew and hope for better things in 2007.

Among such new year wishes like going to the gym regularly to keep fit, the poet Ruth Padel, in an article "Turn over a new leaf" in The Guardian (30th Deecember 2006), suggests reading poetry as a balm for one's soul. Here are some short excerpts:

"Poetry...protects us against meaninglessness: by the pleasure it gives in its artifice, images and imagination, and in the little nudgy sensual relationships between words and sounds that hint at new ideas, poetry augments and reflects our delight in the world."

"Reading poetry truthfully, responsibly, fortifies your own individual inwardness. Poetry is the art of concentration not just from the poet's point of view (chucking out what you don't need, boiling down the words, the thoughts), but from the reader's. It makes you concentrate on things that matter to you inside."

I guess that's why reading poetry matters to us contributors here at puisi-poesy. It's a journey by the self, for the self and of the self to discover who one is in this world, and among life's joy and sadness, beauty and ugliness, to discern some significance, some meaning that just might touch a sense of an achingly unreachable place both inside oneself and without, a kind of transcdence, if you will, that brings one's transcience and fragility together in a personal way.

Puisi-poesy is like a chart, a space for our own individual journeys marked through our readings, and by sharing them, we as contributors hope that you (especially for those new to poetry) might find something for yourself among the many different poems shared here. Drop us a line, if you please.

Happy New Year!