Live Encounters Poets on Poetry July 2026
Mini edition of Poets on Poetry
There is no ‘Mother’ in Nature. It is an efficient system that takes no prisoners, and leaves nothing to waste. The survival of the fittest, eating of the young, infirm, and the merciless lashing of the planet by storms, volcanoes, floods and more. Its errant children, supported by the law of survival of the fittest, continue to devastate and murder one another with a ruthlessness second only to Divine retribution.
Amidst this menagerie of organised chaos lies the mote in one’s eye. That irritating speck, which refuses to leave the surface of the eye. It clutches tightly hoping to keep the eyelid shut so that senseless hate and violence do not intrude upon the very soul of the onlooker. Alas, a splash of water later, seeing once again becomes crystal clear, where living is hell, and a death that dispels a sense of belonging. But this doesn’t last. The mote always returns, perhaps to remind one that the only path towards life is to close one’s eyes and see with our hearts.
As we trudge across the plains of our miserable lives we carry a heavy burden. The burden of love, of forgiveness, of charity, of faith, of non-violence. We are Sisyphus personified, desperately seeking an end to the cycle of great effort ending in boundless failure.
Many among us have intentionally dropped these burdens and embraced the cruelty and unforgiving nature of Nature. We excel in this deception of our true selves. And it is here that the Sherpas, standing by the wayside, come forward to lift these discarded burdens to carry them forward for all humanity. We call these Sherpas, poets.
How does one become a poet? And can one learn to become a poet?
We can find suitable explanations in the mundane and the absurd. The lexicon deliberately leads one into a labyrinth and into the mouth of a thesaurus where one is lost in the calisthenics of self-serving egoism. The perpendicular pronoun, I, becomes omnipotent. But despite these hurdles, many poets do emerge from this labyrinth, to rise above the baying crowds to present, by word, mirrors for our souls.
In an interview in Live Encounters, June 2012, the late Irish Poet, Writer, Editor and member of Aosdána, Philip Casey said, “There are people who think writers are elitist loafers and leeches and never do a day’s work, and while the Catholic Church was at its most powerful and obscurantist in the 1940s and 1950s, books were banned and writers were hounded from their jobs, a notable case being the novelist and short-story writer John McGahern. Most writers of note had to leave the country. Today is a different matter, and I think there is a general respect for writing as a profession. I know that writing friends from abroad have commented on the fact that if you declare yourself to be a writer in Ireland, nobody thinks it’s strange!
The peculiar thing about poetry is that a lifetime’s experience can be distilled into a few lines, though I think any poet is lucky if he or she leaves behind one durable poem. To leave more than half a dozen durable poems is to be a great poet.
As for ebooks, I see some writers publishing direct to Kindle, but as yet not many. I don’t own a Kindle and probably won’t, as I believe in open formats and I distrust the Kindle’s proprietary format. I do however sometimes read ebooks, mostly free classics, on my old smart phone and I think as the technology evolves and open formats become better appreciated then writers will be more comfortable with e-publishing.”
This is the seventeenth year of Live Encounters Poetry & Writing. During this period, some contributing poets have moved on to another plain. The plaintive voices of loved ones left behind continue to be heard on social media, which is flooded with the beauty of cruelty and the anguish of love.
LE has invited some of the outstanding poets, who have been contributing their work for many years to Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, to share their views on questions related to poets and poetry. Here are their answers. Perhaps this mini-sized brains trust can enlighten aspiring poets in their daily encounters with the lyrical WORLD.
Mark Ulyseas
Publisher/Editor https://liveencounters.net
© Mark Ulyseas
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mark-Ulyseas/author/