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Showing posts from July, 2009

Why I love poetry

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This week over on my facebook page, I've decided to post a new poem every day. When I teach poetry, I always talk about how much we love rhythm and meter when we are children. How poems and songs shape our lives. And about how the way we teach poetry can kill that love. As much as I believe that riff--as much as I know how my childish, nay child-like heart responds to doggerel, I know that my love of poetry goes deeper than that. Poetry is the art of surprise. Like the cactus flower that seems to grow out of the pure rock in the photo above, a poem can offer a surprising flash of life, of beauty, of truth, in just a simple collection of precise words. Today's poem, Reckless , by Mary Oliver, is a great example of what I mean. I am not going to repost the entire poem here, but allow me to share a verse that set me on fire. Just yesterday I watched an ant crossing a path, through the tumbled pine needles she toiled. And I thought: she will n