Is a genie blocking your way?

Issue #79 of your inbox poetry magazine

Sometimes a
genie is hard to find.
Sometimes they're simply blocking your way,
unavoidably they
free your mind.

Does a poem become a poem when it is carefully crafted or can it be a poem the moment it is committed to paper, digital or not? This question is food for some nice conversations poets can have. As in many things, there are camps. The pros and the cons. As in just as many things, I think the world is not black and white. It’s a festival of an uncountable amount of colours and their shades. Some poems need to be worked on, others come out perfect, others again are not worth the paper or screen they’re printed, typed or written on. It’s a case of not clearly the one or the other, it’s a case of sometimes this, sometimes that, sometimes a combination and other times something completely different. As with many things in life.

For me, most of my work somehow comes to me. Like Elizabeth Gilbert describes in that TED talk I have shared before in an issue about inspiration, I feel like a poem comes to me and if I am lucky, I am able to catch it and share it with the world. Like the poem above, when a genie was literally in my way, as you can also see in the accompanying picture.

Read on to find the Something to listen to and Poetry elsewhere sections.

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Something to listen to

Especially in times like these, we need more understanding of the other. One way to achieve that is through language. In our latest podcast episode we speak with multi-lingual poet Raffaella Ferretti:

It’s a new month and a new playlist, this time we are celebrating the diversity of life with an eclectic playlist that is best played in shuffle mode:

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Poetry elsewhere

The fun of nursery rhymes lies in their rhythm, rhyming and repetition. They’re catchy and easy to remember or memorize. And, as this poem HYPE shows, those properties are very useful for sharing an opinion and provoking thoughts.

Poets all over the world are trying to make sense of what is happening in Ukraine. I, myself, have not been able to find the words. But some have. Like our friend Amy, who has written The Winter of Sunflowers.

Parenting is a balancing act. On one hand, you want to protect your children from any potential harm, on the other hand, you want them to be independent thinkers who can fend for themselves. Oh, how I fear the inevitable teenage years. This poem, IN NO SENSE by Suzanne Kiera Anthony, is a reflection on that.