introduction

by Richard Blanco, Academy of American Poets education ambassador and Barack Obama’s second inaugural poet

 

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ften at dinner parties or even at my own poetry readings, someone admits to me, “You know, I’ve never really understood poetry.” In their bashfully honest tone, I hear not merely a confession, but also a question on their mind, curious as to what poetry is or isn’t. I ask them about the last poem they read, and they often answer something like, “I probably haven’t read a poem since high school.” I then explain that it’s not that they don’t get poetry—they just haven’t been reading it. Then I ask if they have a favorite poem; ironically, they usually do, one that they’ve passionately memorized. They do get poetry. When I say that out loud to them, they chuckle, but I can sense something shift in them. Many of us, as I did once, suffer some degree of metrophobia, a recognized fear of poetry. It usually arises when we’re taught to read poetry as cryptic riddles that we must solve in order to understand. But poetry is much more like a song than a riddle.

We often listen or sing along to songs without knowing exactly what all the lyrics mean, but we certainly do know how songs make us feel. In other words, we first allow ourselves to experience the feeling of a song, without trying to decipher what it means, precisely. It’s important to initially engage poems in a similar way and accept that, even though we may not fully understand them, we can feel them. If you are deeply moved by even just a few lines from one poem in this book, then you get poetry. Like music, poetry instills in us a complexity of emotions; as we ponder those emotions, we learn the deeper meaning of the poem. What’s more, there are many different styles and periods of poetry, just as there is in music. It would be silly to say that you don’t like music because you heard a song you didn’t like. Yet we often treat poetry this way, as if all poems are the same. Which is to say, give yourself permission to not necessarily love every poem in this collection, though I’m confident you will find at least one that will stir your whole being because we naturally do get poetry in the same way we get music. Read that poem aloud over and over again, the way we repeatedly play our favorite songs and sing along to them. Let the poem sing in you.

 

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We also often subscribe to the false notion that a poet writes a poem with a premeditated, finite idea in mind, and that we must adhere to that idea exactly as the poet intended, no exceptions. In other words, we accept the fallacy that we must treat poems objectively, and are not allowed to subjectively interpret them as they relate to our own life experiences. We needn’t stifle poetry nor ourselves this way, just as we don‘t in music. For example, one of my favorite James Taylor songs, “Fire and Rain,” was written about a dear friend of his who died; however, in my mind that song is just as much about my father and his untimely death, not just James Taylor’s friend. I’m not wrong for making a song mine, so to speak; nor does it mean that I don’t get a song. The same applies to poetry. If you were to tell me that a poem of mine evoked something about your life, I’d consider it a huge compliment. That would mean that you really got my poem because you saw your life in it and made it yours as well, which is what I strive for in all my poems. We needn’t read poetry with the apprehension that we’re only supposed to get what we think the poet wants us to get, as if they’re watching over our shoulders to make sure that is the case. Poetry, like music, relates subjective experiences, and we should feel free to respond to them subjectively as well, for they are intended to echo our own lives within their artists’ lives. Though we all have particular stories, we’re all grounded in the universal emotions of the human condition.

 

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There’s yet another less obvious but important way in which poetry parallels music. They share a common ancestry and artistic DNA as forms of oral tradition that originated and developed as community over centuries. Long before mass-print books and recorded music were widely available, they thrived as public art forms—still do to a large degree—and are best experienced as such even today. Sure, we enjoy listening to a favorite musical artist on Spotify, but we’re also compelled to go watch them preform at a concert. Why? Because we’re drawn to the power of the art form as a public, live experience shared in a community. The same holds true for poetry readings when we hear the poems we’ve read while snuggled quietly on the couch; the poems we may or may not have understood in our lifetimes; or the poems we have never read. They all come alive in real time, in three dimensions, as we witness the reader’s raised brow, the sheen in their eyes, their flailing hands, their voices carving the air with cadences and pauses. What’s more, there is a collective energy of everyone else in the room that validates our feelings and broadens our understanding of ourselves, others, and our times.

So I ask that you bring this book to your next dinner party, birthday celebration, poolside barbecue, or family reunion, and read a favorite poem from it. Then confidently tell everyone how it makes you feel about your life and invite them to do the same. Learn from each other’s lives through poetry. And if someone says, “You know, I’ve never really understood poetry,” hand them your copy, ask them to read this introduction so that I can share with them what I’ve just shared with you, and what I’ll share now. Believe it or not, I discovered poetry at a relatively older age and somewhat accidentally. Having at best merely a mild interest in poetry, one day I picked up an anthology like this one, simply wanting to explore my creative and intellectual horizons. That book opened a door into my present-day love for poetry, even though at the time I wasn’t a reader or writer of poems. That book is this book, an invitation to give poetry a try, as I did once. Though of course with the hope you will fall in love with the art form and discover how poems—like the ones in this collection—indeed matter the way music matters to us all.