Poetry and Zen, Part 3 of 3
Poetry doesn’t have to be good to save your life; it just has to be your own. This is a truth that I learned during my turbulent teen years – years during which the only thing keeping me from losing my mind, so to speak, was the fact that I was writing about it! Alright, perhaps I exaggerate just a little bit – we are talking about dreaded adolescence, after all – but it is true that poetry provided meaning for me at a time when I really needed it. You see, I fancied myself something of a rebel poet back then, skipping out of the classes that I didn’t like in order to steal my way down to the darkened high school auditorium – there to sit alone in the yawning silence, plumbing the depths of my being. Sure, I’d started reading about Eastern religions and philosophy by then, but I’d not yet begun to meditate. Poetry was my meditation, and it held me in good stead throughout those turbulent years. I strongly recommend it to anyone grappling with life-changing issues. And it doesn’t even ...