A Matter of Perspective

I had an interesting chat with a friend of mine today. I was telling her that despite the fact that I’ve written poetry since I could hold a pencil and I’ve often been told my poems are “good” , I really don’t “get” poetry. At least not so-called modern poetry.

Poetry is like art. I either like it or I don’t. It either speaks to me or it doesn’t. I will never be able to understand why one painting has so much more value than another. I don’t get why Picasso ended up so famous (I can hear my daughter, the art major, gnashing her teeth as I type).

I then related to my friend the story of the only painting I ever saw that I felt was worth the ticket price. I saw it a long time ago in a little gallery in Stratford, Ontario. The painting itself was done in either watercolour or pastel, clouds of mist from which emerged the half-formed figures of Arthur and his knights, but they were skeletal, ancient. The painting seemed to pull me in until I could almost feel the mist . . .

My friend turned to me and said, “So, you were always bent then?”

*sigh*

It's all a matter of perspective.