Poetic License

What’s a skill you consider basic, that most people don’t actually know how to do?

finding the beauty
in small fragments of language
–catching flutterbies

Poetry as an art-form feels and sounds like such a basic skill, but to truly be able to capture a thought, event or emotion with the bare essential of words is something very few truly master.

As you may have guessed, I love poetry. I was talking with a novelist yesterday, and finally said something out loud I’ve probably thought for years: I don’t have the attention span to be a novelist.

But poetry – catching moments in little glass jars and enjoying them for a time before letting them be free – seems to work well for me, at the moment at least.

Now, I forgot to mention the next level of poetry that even fewer master: writing to form (and with this, writing lyrics). That is another world entirely, one I venture into when I feel brave. When inspiration strikes, it feels like such a basic skill, but to be truly successful in this is an almost impossible task.

With AI spewing out so much absolute shit poetry, songs and lyrics, I hope that the love of, finesse and craftsmanship of poetry is a world that is never lost, because it truly is something that is so intrinsically human – and touches on the divine.

Though an algorithm can obviously write these things now (by stealing from all that has gone before without attribution), will it ever feel the words how we feel them, as we try to define our existence one syllable at a time?

Just my coffee thought for the day…

What about you? What’s a basic skill for you that others find really difficult?