What Is A Poem? Poem by Ananta Madhavan

Snapshots of moments, that's what poems are.
Some people are keener of the camera.
'I am a camera'. Think of a person
Whose head is a camera, adjusting his ear-knobs.

A poem is a tone of voice that is heard.
The poet is a ventriloquist;
Listen to the tone and the timbre.

Another thought: a poem is like a tree
With trunk, roots, branches, leaves
And its own peculiar identity.

A poem has two lives and many deaths:
First, what it is born with,
Outlasting its coffin in a lost notebook
Or an untouched book.

The second life is public,
The life breathed into it when read by someone
Who is also a poet.

We too have secret and public lives.