The spaces inside that poetry fills
By Karen Kenyon
Editor’s Note: Poet and essayist Karen Kenyon has introduced readers to other San Diego poets on this site. We have asked SDFP’s contributing poets why they write. This is her response. Her poem Chiaroscuro is below.
St John the Baptist by Caravaggio
Why I Write
My mother was a pianist, so I grew up surrounded by music and lyrics. In addition,my blind grandfather wrote poems all the time, so writing poetry and being creative seemed a natural thing to do.
During college years I was an Art Major at UNM in Albuquerque (until I married after 3 years). But it was really after something difficult happened that poetry really entered my life full force.
We all have spaces inside, and I feel that poetry comes to fill in those wounds, enters places of possibility inside — gives us a way to express and share our inner world, honors special moments, and says things that can be expressed in no other way.
Chiaroscuro
If you want light
crack the mirror.
Each blade, each sliver
will become a boat of light
If you want light
go into a Caravaggio painting
to St. John the Baptist’s leg —
or into the center of a stone
where poets say there are stars shining.
If you want light
check every wall in your dark house —
the floor also.
In January the light will leak through
and paint messages with its hot finger.
If you want light
go into the blackest night
where little by little
even the deepest ink
will have its shadow of light.
Karen Kenyon
Latest posts by Karen Kenyon (see all)
- ‘Seize the King’ at La Jolla Playhouse: Self-Righteousness, Greed and Lust for Power - September 12, 2018
- Our Fathers - June 16, 2018
- ‘Community Hero’ Attorney Steve Binder and San Diego’s Homeless Court Program - April 18, 2018
An extraordinary poem by one of San Diego’s finest poets. Most people know Karen Kenyon for her prose (she recently published a book on the life of Charles Dickenson available through Amazon) but as you can see from the above verse she is also a talented poet! Thanks for publishing her work!
Forgive me, I meant to say Charles Dickens (the Smartphone spellcheck Jeanie’s are messing with my words again). Karen’s new book is called, “Charles Dickens Victorian Novelist of Compassion and Contradiction.”