This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 25, 2013 - "If you’re a poet, let us know it," the Beacon asked its readers. They are, and they did.
In honor of National Poetry Month, we sought original verses, rhyming or not, in haiku or other short form, through our Public Insight Network.
Readers responded with reflections on diverse topics including the advent of spring, Justin Bieber’s recent comments regarding Anne Frank, and the exhumation of the body of a Nobel Prize-winning poet.
Odes to spring
St. Louis’ shy spring motivated several poets, including Grady Manus, 61, of Sibley, Mo.
The self-employed educator, writer and cultural resource manager sees poetry as "the anguished cries of the inner beast rendered as sweet music."
Manus writes about an experience he had "very early one spring morning while driving through the Femme Osage valley near Defiance, Missouri."
deer browse forest edge
turkeys strut among the oaks
life rests - time breathes deep
Shari LeKane-Yentumi, 50, a University City writer, is "always inspired by the return of spring."
She believes that "any artist must express from the heart and the 'artistic soul' for the pure joy of creation."
LeKane-Yentumi shares the the fourth quatrain of her poem, "Spring Equinox."
Miraculous season, the Spring Equinox -
return of the bright, all her colors reborn
in a rainbow of flowers, and trees blooming full,
and the song of the birds and the bees.
Spring also sparked the imagination of St. Louis’ Katie Banister, 48, who teaches poetry writing workshops. She believes that, "Bad things happen but poetry can help you find the beauty in the bad." The speaker, author and disability educator with Access-4-All is "grateful for the many lessons and beauty that have come my way" since a 1990 auto accident led to her wheelchair use.
Spring on wheels rolls by
My chair and I are outside
Cold weather good-bye!
Bieber bash
Steve Harris, 67, a self-employed Latin teacher in St. Louis was moved to write about teen singer Justin Bieber after Bieber’s April 12 inscription at the Anne Frank House in The Netherlands. According to published reports, Bieber wrote in the guest book, "Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."
I "had to roll down the window in case I threw up," Harris said. Instead, what emerged from within was his "tweet to a celebrity":
no way, Justin — a
fine boy there not growing up
for different reasons
Finally, we leave you with a longer poem by Lou Jobst of Fenton, 64, who works part-time with gifted students in the Parkway School District. Poetry "often starts with a 'trigger,' a moment, a place, a person — and leads us on a journey to unexpected places, providing us with peace, joy, discomfort, sadness ...,"Jobst said.
Jobst’s submission reflects upon the poetry of Chilean writer Pablo Neruda, and the April 8 exhumation of his body to determine if he died of poisoning, not cancer, in 1973.
Pablo Neruda's Body Will Be Exhumed for Autopsy
authorities want to examine
the remains
to see if he was poisoned
2 shovels flash in the sun
clods sail in small arcs
gathering in mounds
they reach the casket
offended to be disturbed
and wedge shovels into place to free it
two others jump quickly into the grave
and grasp the mud-dried box in gloved hands
they hoist it slide it
then lift it again into the back of the hearse
yawning
as if bored by yet-another passenger
later
in the lab
they release the screws
pry open the lid
out fly
poems on vellum
words
golden mottled molten
butterflies freed
filling the air
once again
with his fluttering fragrances
