My Views on Poetry and a little about the blog

Hi all
 The title "Where shall I wander..." is actually also (and not coincidentally) a title of a collection of poems by John Ashbury a great poet. It's embarassing to admit I already can't remember a single poem of his I've read, but more than anything his poetry left a very nice impression and I think that the title sums what I remember perfectly. For me when i think of his poetry all I can remember is this singular sensation of wandering, for the sake of wandering.

My wandering of course is a little different, I have on occaision tried to be a bit like Ashbury and Whitman. Still I don't claim to really know much about high art and be well read. My poetry is basically from the heart.
Sometimes very raw and sometimes very contemplative, but it always comes from a place inside me. I was wondering if it's appropriate to be this intense and personal on a blog. But I also realised something I struggle with is dishonesty. So as I wander, thanks for humouring me. I look forward to some company on my journey. And you can look forward to the full extent of my sometimes daunting honesty
Hopefully, this site might also become a place for others to share their poems. So how it will work is this I'llpost a new poem at least once a week. One of mine. The rules of course are bound to change over time. I think as well I'll also prepare a little explanation for each one. Of course I'm a true believer that everyone should take something different from a poem.
So what I write I want you to see as my personal sentiments and repsonse. Please have your own good or bad. Sometimes bad reactions are the most powerful and hillarious. All i want to capture is why I choose to write that poem when I did, why it was important to me and why I had to write it down. It certainly isn't by any stretch of the imagination the only definitive meaning of the text. I've done enough study at Uni to know that just can't be done :P

Poems can be alienating though can't they. The idea of not knowing what a poem means is baffling or the idea that it's meaning is not important (well for those who it is rest assured my exposition should give some meaning to it). It's funny when I think of it the reason I've always found poetry somewhat alieanting (funny since I like to write it) is that I've never really been told how I'm supposed to look at a poem. Clearly it's not about a story, an idea then? Is it about a nice sound is it really art in words? Is it testing language? Is it expressing feelings in a way that no other writing can? Who knows...to be honest
I used to always be so eager to decode them and work out their meaning.

I was a nerd and still am decoding poems and words it can be fun. However, the grim truth is most poetry is pretty impossible to know perfectly. At least in my opinion. In fact something interesting to think about is how it is the single hardest thing to translate from one language into another. In fact many would argue when translating you can't do it. Because poetry isn't just about the meaning, it's about the sounds of the words. Part of the reason I like Ashbury isn't so much seeing an amazing image it's the way his words seem to wander over the page. It's really nice to let yourself be taken along.

I find I'm still learning how to truly look at a poem properly.