My Inspiration

5 Jalal 163 B.E. April 12-13, 2006

Where do you get your inspiration? That is one of the questions people ask me, when the find out I write poetry. My answer is from various sources, because at the time I am looking at the specific impetuous for a particular poem or group of poems. Lately, however, I have tried to trace the impulse to write an individual verse to its root and then back to the seed.

When you look up the word inspiration, the dictionary gives a number of definitions, but many of those definitions refers to the spiritual. This got me to thinking when I started to write poetry seriously. I did not begin earnestly composing poems until I became a Baha’i, before I accepted Baha’u’llah my poetry was hit or miss. After I became a Baha’i, my poetry and the desire to write it changed dramatically. I wanted to write poems about the Bab, Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha. I aspired to write poems about the Nineteen Day Feast and the Holy Days. I longed to write poems about divine unity and the three onenesses. I wrote poems and am still writing poems on those subjects. In addition, I write poems about every other subject I can find or desire to write about.

Baha’u’llah is the root of my inspiration; His writings inspire me to write. As a result, all the other sacred scriptures and the messengers who revealed them inspire me; because they all are revelations sent by God.