I, Poet

I need to ease the itch of words
that wake me up at night,
to sing in a different language
with imagery and bite.

I love to linger in poems where
no other poet has been yet,
to feel a smile inside myself  
when other people get it.

The poetichor of a poem
can drive me to distraction,
like spring blossom dancing
or a honeysuckle explosion.

Poetry is as precious as rain
or silent prayers of frost
leaving tracks across the grass,
tempering trees with silver crust.

Poems can capture winter sun,
a butter-yellow aconite,
or the mellowness of a moon
that keeps me up at night.

I don’t need a paintbrush
to evoke freshly mown hay
or a stranger’s steaming overcoat
on a cold and rainy day.

An artist cannot paint the smell
of my grandfather’s shaving brush,
the lipstick on a bed-time kiss
or my mothers’ gentle “Hush!”

But I, a poet, can inhale yellow
and exhale a field of sunflowers;
infuse my pen in greens and blues
and write happiness in my darkest hours.

Kim M. Russell, 3rd April 2025

Image by Nicholas Messifet on Unsplash

Three days into NaPoWriMo and the daily resource is the online art collection of South Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The optional prompt is also linked to art and the American poet Frank O’Hara, art critic and friend to numerous painters and poets In New York City in the 1950s and 60s. We have one of his poems to inspire us, ‘Why I Am Not a Painter’.

Our challenge is to “write a poem that obliquely explains why you are a poet and not some other kind of artist”. I’ve written about this before and dipped into some old poems to draft a new one.

Also shared with the wonderful poets at What’s Going On? for Sumana’s prompt on 9th April 2025 and the dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night on 22nd May 2025.

74 thoughts on “I, Poet”

  3. But I, a poet, can inhale yellow
    and exhale a field of sunflowers;
    infuse my pen in greens and blues
    and write happiness in my darkest hours.

    This last stanza is a perfect ending Kim
    I so love this poem 👏👏👏

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  10. This is a beautiful poem, Kim. Filled with wonderful imagery, But I will reflect on these lines:

    “I love to linger in poems whereno other poet has been yet,to feel a smile inside myselfwhen other people get it.”

    I liked that stanza because I,too, like it when other people ‘get’ my poem, the deeper message beneath the words. That is a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?

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  12. “honeysuckle explosion” Pow! I love this and all the imagery that follows. It is clear that you find the colors of being in words rather than in paint. Lovely. That last verse is most precious.

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  20. This is exquisite, Kim! 😍 I especially admire; “Poems can capture winter sun, a butter-yellow aconite, or the mellowness of a moon that keeps me up at night.” ❤️❤️

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  21. I love everything about this! It just makes me smile. I am most smitten with this stanza:”An artist cannot paint the smellof my grandfather’s shaving brush,the lipstick on a bed-time kissor my mothers’ gentle “Hush!””

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  23. “Poetichor” must be an anglicized version of “petrichor” or just a more poetic way to say it. No matter, it suffuses the reading with the winding scent of its way. The poem as its own poetichor … ’tis reason enough for me to breathe!

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  25. Everything led to that magnificent last stanza…where I, personally lingered…superlative writing Kim…..a lovely little poem, perhaps, but in reality a long and winding road you have walked, and are walking with your words..

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  30. This is really in honour of the power of poetry, I love the poetichor which I think is a play on petrichor, the smell of fresh rain on the soil? I think you make such good points for the way all the senses and emotions can be engaged and had not thought about that in relation to a piece of art. I loved ‘inhaling’ your poem!

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