“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
John Keating, Dead Poets society
I had a great penchant for romantic English poems ever since I can remember. Had I not taken science for a career, surely, I would have been teaching Keats, Shakespeare, and Shelly to college students. Quite often, I miss my college days, especially, the English class where I was taught some of greatest poems of English literature. I learned with passion La Belle Dame sans Merci (French: "The Beautiful Lady without Pity"), Because I could not stop for death, The road not taken, Ozymandias etc. I still pull rabbit out of the hat among friends by reciting some of the poems studied. Those days, I used to imagine myself saying “Breathes there the man with soul so dead” or “To unpathed waters, undreamed shores”.
So who is my favorite poet? If I am asked to pick only one, it has to be Emily Dickinson. Her poems reveal intense passion for life, nature, love, and death. Many times I found her speaking my words, my thoughts. She always said things which I always wanted to say, in the best possible manner, through poems.
Do I write? Yes, I do. I write “something” which lies in between prose and verse, to call that poem will be an insult to the group of great poets whom I admire. I would rather read and learn poems than attempting to write in vain, which may result in colossal catastrophe.
