Rod Cockrum

Immediacy Rod Cockrum

Poetry's power is contained and effective, and best when its conciseness reveals entirely the subject's values. A few carefully phrased words relate sometimes much more than a plethora of descriptive paragraphs, dialogue or physical spectacle. Well written poetry engages the reader to a shared emotion, thought, place, imagination or experience, if briefly, then qualitatively. Communications in the 21st Century electronic culture portends the brevity, shock, silliness or agenda and sales-intentions of its creator and can disallow the recipient an experience of shared expression. When novelists and screen writers digress too quickly and easily to thematic repetitiveness and redundancy, they can fail to convey the subjects' and the characters' uniqueness, richness and diversity, thus its relevance to the reader. I wrote the majority of the poems in "Immediacy" during the last ten years, few earlier, few more recently. Subjects range from nature, places, found and lost loves, art, time, passion, longing, depression, emotion and random thought. I wrote complete sentences, utilized, but did not emphasize, abstract phrasing, avoided cliché and toned each poem with individuality and thoughtful structure. Each poem has personal meaning, and I hope this is conveyed to the reader. Life is personal and derived from our experiences. We use the written word and shared expression as navigational tools to avoid destructive and uncomfortable experiences.