by Nilofer Ashraff

Created on: February 16, 2009

Without even hesitating, my answer would be heart. I guess this is mainly because I am a highly emotional person. Be it poetry or any type of writing that I do, I always put a little bit of my heart, soul and emotions into it. Of course my mind does help, in coming up with the words, seeing if the poem flows, seeing if I did not make any spelling or grammatical errors, but that's the extent of it. The mind dictates the technical parts of the poem. The rawness of a poem, which is the bulk of the poem, definitely without a doubt comes from the heart.

I used to tell myself that I should be writing a poem a day, because I am a poet, a writer. I used to tell myself that if I claim to be a poet and a writer, I have to be constantly writing, and not just write whenever I feel like it. I tried doing this, tried using my mind to come up with words, but those poems were never as good as the ones that had a part of me in them. So I gave up this idea.

When I read a poem, I don't look out for how clever the poem is in terms of its technical terms but how much of emotion an author put into it. I look out for feelings, emotions, I look out for the author in the poem. If by the end of the poem, I feel like I know part of him/her, that's when I usually decide that that piece of poetry is good, at least to me.

I live life, following my heart more than my mind. People say that this might not be a good thing in the long run. Poetry is a part of life. So since those two are interconnected, how I view poetry, is the same way I view life. I follow my heart and find true beauty at the end of that journey.

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