I Try To Show What It Is

From The Time I Began To Read, As A Child, I Loved To Feel Their Heft In My Hand And The Warm Spot Caused By Their Intimate Weight In My Lap; I Loved The Crisp Whisper Of A Page Turning, The Musky Odor Of Old Paper And The Sharp Inky Whiff Of New Pages. Leather Bindings Sent Me Into Ecstasy. I Even Loved To Gaze At A Closed Book And Daydream About The Possibilities Inside.

If Only The Sun-drenched Celebrities Are Being Noticed And Worshiped, Then Our Children Are Going To Have A Tough Time Seeing The Value In The Shadows, Where The Thinkers, Probers And Scientists Are Keeping Society Together.

Instead Of Trying To Come Up And Pontificate On What Literature Is, You Need To Talk With Children, To Teachers, And Make Sure They Get Poetry In The Curriculum Early.

If I Begin Writing A Poem That Means I'm Intrigued In Some Way By Whatever It's About And That If I'm Not Trying To Find Something New And Pushing The Envelope In The Poem I Can't Expect My Reader To Be Particularly Excited About It Either.

For Many Years, I Thought A Poem Was A Whisper Overheard, Not An Aria Heard.