Storytime: How I Met Poetry

You never know where you will find life-changing inspiration. This is why it is good to be open to even the most simple, trivial things and follow the crumbs of inspiration wherever they lead. These days my life is all about poetry. In 2012 I’ve written and performed more poetry than in any other period of my life. I’m searching for a publisher for my book and working on to making a life doing what I love. And you wouldn’t believe that what really set me on this path was Saturday morning cartoons.

Yes. That’s right. As a child I met Poetry while watching a particularly riveting episode of Batman in which Catwoman was transformed into a real cat-like creature with fur and whiskers and everything… but I digress. At the end of that episode I heard a line of poetry that would open my world to a life of artistic expression. Here’s the clip:

I was so fascinated by this line of poetry that I stayed around to read the credits and found out it was “The Tyger” by William Blake. The fact that the writer’s name was “Blake” made me even more interested (I was still young so I thought everybody with my last name was family). I kept the information filed away in my mind with the hope of one day searching for the full poem.

It was quite a long time before I was able to find it. The internet was not at my fingertips back then. But I eventually got a hold of the words, and never let them go since.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

This beautiful poem, written in 1794 turned me on to a form of expression that has since saved my life and sanity many a time. You can still see the influence in my handle, JadeTygress. Who would have thought it? I had childlike wonder on my side which allowed me to wonder at the crumbs and follow them to inspiration. No one says you have to let go of this childlike wonder as you grow up. Capture inspiration in the every day. You’ll never know where it will lead unless you follow.