• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Rabia Gale

alchemical fantasy

  • Home
  • Stories
    • The Reflected City
    • The Sunless World
    • Taurin’s Chosen
    • Heartwood
    • Stand-Alones
  • Newsletter
  • Blog
  • About Me
  • Contact

april is national poetry month

… all two days that are left of it, that is.

I confess to not being much of a poetry reader as an adult. I was drawn to poetry as a child– as all children are– reveling in imagery and metaphor and wordplay and rhythm. I loved studying poetry in my English literature classes in high school (my teachers were brilliant; college English classes were a disappointment afterward). They also instilled in me the tendency to quote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock randomly at my husband. Now that I have children of my own, I have come full cycle as I watch them explore rhyme and rhythm, and beg to hear poetry and nursery rhymes.

As a young teenager, though, I was moved by several poems (and confounded by several others–I’m looking at you, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird!). The one that stands out in my memory, even after all these years is Gabriel Okara’s Piano and Drums. Back then it perfectly typified the identity struggle faced by so many of us non-white children living under a colonial legacy. Children who wore shalwar kameez and ate biryani and daal, and went to a prep schools complete with prefects, uniforms, and houses named after British dudes who expanded or governed the British Empire. Children who spoke fluent English, but spoke their native tongues haltingly and hesitatingly. Children who lay in the hot hot afternoon sun with mango and coconut trees whispering outside their windows and immersed themselves in stories of Toms and Janes at boarding school in chilly grey England.

Now that I’m older, my perspective of the poem has changed. For me, it is less of an identity struggle between cultures and more about the transition from childhood to adulthood. When I read it with my adult eyes, it fills me with a sometimes painful nostalgia for times that were simpler; simpler in their contrasts of black and white, simpler in their bold colors and emotions writ large. Now, I am an adult and my life is full of nuance and subtlety and complexity, like a piano concerto (ironically, I even play the piano now!). I look back at my childhood with mixed feelings, often glad that it is over, sometimes missing the comfortable simplicity of it. I am not lost in the mist, bewildered, as Osaka is, but often I’m reminded that I can never reverse time, never go back “home” to childhood again.

As I return to poetry through my children again, I have the added benefit of my adult tastes and perspective meshing with the freshness and playfulness of their outlook. My current favorite poem is one that Sir I. has been working on memorizing: Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti. It combines two things I find fascinating and fearful–wind and trees (ask me sometimes about how my stomach drops into a giant pit when I see our willow branches lashing about in a high wind); it’s simple and songlike; and we’ve had fun discussing its structure. It’s amazing what children will notice about poems.

How about you? What is your favorite poem? Why?

Share via email Share

Filed Under: inspiration

Get Each Post in Your Inbox

Sign up here to receive each blog post in your inbox.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Megs - Scattered Bits says

    May 4, 2010 at 8:49 am

    I’ve tried and tried and I just can’t pick one! But for today, I’ll go with “The Darkling Thrush” and “Lucifer in Starlight.” I don’t remember who wrote either of them (different authors), but I love both. It’s the imagery and the language and the way they make me feel. The first one is seeing something to be thankful for in the emptiness of winter where it seems joy is inappropriate. The second is just such a fundamental statement of how no matter what it seems like, the light is greater than the darkness. And yet they’re both spoken simply and don’t just slam bang you with the point. Love them.

    Reply
  2. Rabia says

    May 5, 2010 at 7:17 pm

    Ohh, even the names of those are evocative. I shall have to hunt them down to read them.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Join the Mailing List

I send out monthly newsletters, and share some special content with subscribers only. Join me!
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Search

Latest Release

Sun and Strands

A bunch of magical misfits. Their place to belong. Out of work and trapped in a dead-end coastal town. This is not what Amber had in mind when she left her island home to explore a continent drenched in magic and once inhabited by dragons. She’s this close to working at Stunning Spells, a magical sweatshop that churns [read more] about Sun and Strands

Recent Posts

Afterthoughts: Witchblaze

January 31, 2021 8 Comments

A YA anime-inspired web serial

April 30, 2019 Leave a Comment

The Darkest Days Fantasy Bundle

July 10, 2018 Leave a Comment

Now Out: Ghostlight

May 31, 2018 Leave a Comment

Categories

© 2023 Rabia Gale | All Rights Reserved | Design by Robin Cornett | Header Artwork by David Revoy: Used with permission | Privacy Policy