Poetry is ....

I have grown up with poetry, my mother enjoyed writing and reading poetry, we had many anthologies around the house and Robert Frost was my mother`s favourite poet.

I loved reading poems, as it felt musical, flowing and lyrical. 

This may well be why I have a love of music and the stories they tell, painting pictures using notes across staves.  Dancing notes flowing through my imagination.  I learnt to play the piano and have encouraged my children to enjoy music too.  They have all learnt different instruments from guitar, drums, flute and bass.  The house is full of music from all genres and I love it all.  

Poetry is like music, flowing lyrically across the pages, painting pictures using words from the heart.  For me poetry uplifts my spirits and fills me with joy.  However, sometimes poetry expresses the sad times, stressful feelings and I find, once written, help to alleviate these emotions.  They can be better than taking pills, at least for me !

Bereavement was one of those bad times for me ... losing my husband, my soulmate.  I took to expressing my emotions through poetry.  Releasing the stress and pressure I was under. It helped me to continue my journey through life and especially helped me with my children, I was able to find strength to encourage them to look to the future but hold onto memories of the life with their father.

Now I want to give something back to the poetry that helped me.  I have decided to set up some open mic events locally.   This is a new venture for me and to be honest I have never done anything like this before.  I have asked around to use a few local venues and putting out feelers to see who would like to join in.   

Poetry, story telling and music would all be included as all these can be so enjoyable, uplifting and helpful to people in many different ways.  I have a good feeling about these events and really want to set them up and introduce others to new possibilities.

Poetry is ... important to me on different levels, enabling me to cope, strong for my children and enjoy my journey through the rest of my life .....  would you like to join me along this road .... you`d be very welcome  !

Lissie  xXx