“The first poets didn’t come out of a classroom,” says poet Lucille Clifton.

“Poetry began when somebody walked off of a savanna or out of a cave, looked up at the sky with wonder and said:

“Ahhh….”

“That was the first poem”

Flaubert tells us:

“There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.”

“Poetry is everywhere,” James Tate says.

For centuries, poets have been among the keenest observers. They know how to pay attention. They see beauty. They contemplate. They discuss with others what they see.

John Lennon: “Any artist or poet’s role is to try and express what we all feel, not to tell people how to feel; not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection.”

 “Poetry is not difficult,” says Gloria Gonsalves. “If you possess one of the five senses, poetry is in it. If you can compose a text message,Tweet or Facebook status, you can write poetry. If you can rap a song, you can rhyme poetry. If you can memorize a prayer, you can recite poetry.” 

Your invitation to join Contemplative Poets honors your interests to see beyond the obvious and to share your observations without judgment or agenda among a gathering of like-minded souls. Our gathering has nothing to do with writing poetry (though please feel free to share if you do). Our purpose is to gather as poets contemplating together life’s riches and its song.

The poet is:

• A Seeker of Truth: driven by curiosity to ask fundamental questions about existence, emotion, beauty and justice who delves into the hidden nuances that often go unarticulated in everyday life .

• An Explorer of Language:  experimenting with the limits and possibilities of words, rhythm and metaphor, constantly searching for precise expression that makes the abstract concrete and the familiar new.

• A Discoverer of Connection: Through keen observation and creative synthesis, poets reveal unexpected connections between disparate elements, linking personal emotion to universal experience, the mundane to the profound.

• A Mapmaker of the Inner World:  They venture into the landscape of memory, the human mind and spirit to discover and chart territories of consciousness and imagination that may be unmapped or overlooked. 

The poet seeks not just for personal enlightenment, but to bring back discoveries from the edge of human perception to enrich the collective human understanding.

When we thumb through a compilation of quotes from great writers we always find comments from them about the importance of reading.

This is particularly important for those of us who write or who want to write. But, it is true for everyone who values critical thinking and discovery.

Most of the wise agree that what we read is not as important as the act of reading itself.

“Read, read, read,” William Faulkner said. “Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad… ”

Victor Hugo says that  “to learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”

“Books are uniquely portable magic,” says author Steven King. “Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”

Primal rhythm forms the basis for all human expression and experience.

Think of the heartbeat, or the rushing water of the creek, or the rustling of the leaves in the wind.

Virgina Woolf offers this contemplation:

“I sometime think humanity is a vast wave, undulating…” she wrote.

“If life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills – then my bowl without a doubt stands upon this memory. It is of lying half asleep, half awake, in bed in the nursery at St. Ives. It is of hearing the waves breaking, one, two, one, two, and sending a splash of water over the beach; and then breaking one, two, one, two, behind a yellow blind. It is of hearing the blind draw its little acorn across the floor as the wind blew the blind out. It is of lying and hearing this splash and seeing this light, and feeling, it is almost impossible that I should be here; of feeling the purest ecstasy I can conceive.”