What I live for - poetry

Today I’m taking part in ‘What I Live For’, an online event organised by author Satya Robyn. People like me all over the world will be sharing what gives their lives meaning.

In Satya Robyn’s novel ‘Thaw’, Ruth gives herself three months to decide whether she can find a reason to carry on living. There’s 75% off the kindle version today (99p / $1.49) – read more here.

In my case apart from the obvious family and friends is poetry. Reading it, writing it and sharing it, so much so that a day without some poetry in it seems like a wasted opportunity. Reading poetry is a pleasantly solitary activity but giving someone else a poem you've enjoyed doubles or quadruples the enjoyment. So many people have beed put off poetry through having had to study it at school or think you have to be clever to understand poetry and it is great to show them this is not true.

I love being given poems in return and infiltrating poetry into as many places as possible. I'm in a poetry readers group on Good Reads and also Josh Lanyon's group. He writes m/m romances but is, I suspect, really a poet at heart. So the group now has a Read me a poem thread and thanks to the Scandinavian members of the group I've been introduced to poets I would not otherwise have encountered; Tor Jonson, Saima Harmaja, Eeva Kilpi, Karin Boye, Olav H Hauge and Eeva-Liisa Manner.