Pe­op­le who en­joy re­a­ding fic­ti­ve prose may be less fa­mi­li­ar with po­ems. Some even find them hard to un­ders­tand. Yet po­ems of­ten de­pict or­di­na­ry life events in a con­ci­se way.

I dis­co­ve­red po­et­ry at an ear­ly age. Po­ems have brought joy in­to my life, gi­ven rise to many kinds of thoughts, and en­cou­ra­ged me in dif­fi­cult si­tu­a­ti­ons.

If you are not fa­mi­li­ar with po­ems but would like to le­arn about them, start with ant­ho­lo­gies of po­ems by se­ve­ral wri­ters. Among them you may find one or two that seem in­te­res­ting enough for furt­her re­a­ding.

You can al­so write po­ems yo­ur­self. By wri­ting a poem you can crys­tal­li­ze in words sig­ni­fi­cant mo­ments and me­mo­rab­le life ex­pe­rien­ces. Po­ems seem to work best when they make the re­a­ders open their sen­so­ry chan­nels to dif­fe­rent sti­mu­li.

I wrote this poem as an adult, loo­king back to some pre­ci­ous child­hood me­mo­ries:

I re­turn to the foots­teps of child­hood,

wal­king paths of

ver­dant mid­sum­mer.

Fields dap­p­led

with patc­hes of sun­light,

winds that ca­ress

the white trunks of birc­hes

and car­ry the frag­ran­ce of fo­rest,

winds that have the gent­le songs of

child­hood on their lips.

The clay by the ditch

sticks to the so­les of my feet.

I watch birds mig­ra­te,

sur­roun­ded by bright mor­ning light.

Po­ems ty­pi­cal­ly use fi­gu­ra­ti­ve lan­gu­a­ge that arou­ses men­tal ima­ges and emo­ti­ons and al­so pro­vi­de fresh view­points and ob­ser­va­ti­ons. A short, suc­cinct poem is ea­sy to re­mem­ber if it con­tains an idea that the re­a­der can grasp.

Many of the songs that we re­mem­ber from child­hood were writ­ten by skil­l­ful po­ets. For many child­ren the first me­mo­rab­le poem is the eve­ning pra­yer, which gi­ves them a safe and se­cu­re fee­ling at bed­ti­me.

Po­ems can be in­terp­re­ted in many ways, and each re­a­der picks out per­so­nal­ly sig­ni­fi­cant con­tent and dif­fe­rent me­a­nings and nu­an­ces. Po­ems can com­fort the re­a­der or make them laugh or cry.

At ti­mes of strong emo­ti­ons, I of­ten be­gin to hear the words of hymns or songs in my mind. Mu­sic and po­ems go hand in hand.

Re­li­gi­ous and Chris­ti­an po­et­ry ty­pi­cal­ly con­tains sym­bols and me­tap­hors of hope, com­fort and trust in God. There is al­so po­et­ry in the Bib­le. The Psalms, the Song of So­lo­mon and the La­men­ta­ti­ons are the most wi­de­ly known and read po­e­tic Bib­le texts.

I feel that po­ems ca­ress my mind. Wor­king with old pe­op­le, I have seen that even el­ders with me­mo­ry prob­lems have been re­vi­ved by po­ems and songs. They have ope­ned old paths in the per­son’s mind and built brid­ges from the pre­sent to the past.

The best po­ems can ac­com­pa­ny us through life. We want to go back to their mes­sa­ge or at­mosp­he­re over and over again.

I es­pe­ci­al­ly re­mem­ber the col­lec­ti­on of po­ems about grief and lon­ging that was gi­ven to me by col­le­a­gu­es af­ter my fat­her’s de­ath. The po­ems in that book hel­ped me ver­ba­li­ze my nos­tal­gia and sor­row and com­for­ted me.

Text: Vau­la Es­ke­li

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.