Poetry – Thinking Outside of the Box and the Page and the Stuffed Cow

I’ve had the unexpected chance to revisit the earlier question of whether poetry remains relevant. It started with just the spark of a thought, followed by a decision to look up a few poetry publishers. It turns out that a few houses still specialize in poetry, so it’s not as much of a lost art as you might think. I decided to send off a few poems to one of these houses because I specifically want to produce a book combining old poetry scrolls with art and it’s not practical to produce that independently, or so I thought, but I was shortly to prove myself quite wrong.

One publisher made my shortlist specifically because its requirement was short – six poems to be exact and I had an itching to do something involving pens and paper. Something real. I decided to go for a real old artsy feel and, lacking parchment, resorted to brown packaging paper and a host of vibrant art pens et voila, inspiration struck. The finished piece started a movement that I never expected. I was looking at something that had escaped the pages of the unread poetry book and had a life of its own. It was poetry, but it was alive. It was functional. I could hang it on my wall and use it as interior decoration.

And so “Poems By Genieve” was born. I took six unpublished card-sized poems dealing with human emotions and freed them from the confines of the printed book or the e-book. I placed them on pillows, bags, mugs, playing cards, canvas prints and even on a stuffed cow.

Is poetry relevant? The answer is a glorious “Yes!” It’s alive and it’s beautiful. Poetry is art in every possible manifestation.