A lot of poets make this mistake - melodrama. Whether exalted or rife with despair, lines full of people staring at the night sky, spilling their souls out, do not make for good poems. We've all done it. We all want to do it. When I looked at the full moon last night, my heart felt like bursting, but if I wrote that down (and I was tempted), yikes, that would make a sucky, cliched poem. It may not be fair, but it's true. A good poem is mostly ordinary. It does not over-emotionalize. It is understated and restrained. In that way, it speaks to true emotion in a subtle and beautiful way.
I didn't have a particular poem in mind while writing this, but here is one of millions that we can read and feel the emotion without being slapped over the head with it. It's a beautiful poem that makes us feel young and old, makes us feel the magic of this time of year, makes us chuckle and sigh, feel both a touch of joy and pain.
"Holiday Concert" by Maryann Corbett
