What Does Poetry Mean to Me?

  For me, poetry is the sudden journey of one's mind to those places each of us have which give us peace and the sense of completion. We feel embraced by the love of those that we love, no matter if they are far away or have passed on. Poetry is for me: the union of spirits, roots, inner strength and that flight to that different world we create, which we feel in our skin gives us absolute entrance into that flame which consumes us and elevates us to other dimensions. To my understanding poetry cannot exist without mental freedom- it cannot be forced, placed under conditions, nor imposed upon. I imagine it as a wild trotting colt, allowing the wind to blow its mane, pausing to sip water from a pure and crystalline brook, resting, returning to a trot, solitary, eternal, free, always free. Or like an innocent child who for the first time gazes upon the universe with newfound awareness and delights before the beauty of creation. Poetry for me is the gratitude for the gift that God gave me to share, to give, and always will I be in His debt as it has filled my life with such intimate happiness, without which my existence, in spite of moments of joy, would be languid and sad- I would feel tied down, unaware, anxious to fly... My poetry became more real to me at my exile from Cuba, the pain and absence of my homeland, like to all others, broke my heart. In Spain I read much, the classic poets cooed me with their rhymes, inspiring me to write, and I did it with a passion, without rein, in order to rip out so much sadness, and for the first time in a long time I found happiness. In those moments I learned that the absence, my writing of poetry would free me, would lift me as a lost seagull and I would rest along the edges of a pool of peace- I understood that it would be my eternal nourishment. I know at last that poetry does not die, nor will ever die as long as there continue to exist human beings, suffering, joy, and as long as we hold open our spirits as windows to the sun to share with others. It is with these thoughts of hope that I leave you today. 

Marilú Capín de Aguilar