It was a small gathering and to be brutally honest, it was only a matter of coincidence and good luck that I remembered the little note in my calendar.
In school they used to tell us that if it didn’t rhyme, it wasn’t poetry so when she told me that in her writing, there was no such thing as a metrical pattern, I was yet again convinced that my whole school life was a lie.
It was an interesting realisation that in a city like Berlin, at almost any hour of the day, there is always something taking place. Somewhere people gather to watch a play, hear a speech or listen to a piece of classical music. This is a city of events and the smaller, the less known it is, the more interesting, more intimate and unique it appears to be.
Poetry doesn’t always make sense to people who did not write it themselves. But since yesterday I figured that maybe the beauty of poetry doesn’t lie in the sense of its words. If you ever watch young poets in the making sharing their work with an audience in a tiny location on the grounds of an old german brewery, you may come to realise that a poem gets its beauty from its poet.
It was not just about words and meaning. It was also all about voices, about emotions and passion. Have you ever noticed how a personal poem can sound like a rap song if the tone of voice is right? When it gets louder with each line, fueled by rising emotions and memories? Not only is it all about how one writes something but also about how the written is presented.
I sat there and listened to people pour their hearts out on stage. A famous german poet once said that in every piece of writing the author gives away something about himself. So if you want to get to know people, look at what they write about and how they write it. It can say a lot.
I sat there watching them and felt admiration for these people who stayed true to what drives them, regardless who gets to hear their results. They write poetry because they love it. Their love of what they do makes them beautiful.
“I should have kept writing, too”, I said to myself. So now back here I am.
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