Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."
I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.
November by Billy Collins
After three days of steady rain - over two inches said the radio - I follow the example of monks who write by a window, sunlight on the page. Five times this morning, I loaded a wheelbarrow with wood and steered it down the hill to the house, and later I will cut down the dead garden with a clippers and haul the soft pulp to a grave in the woods, but now there is only my sunny page which is like a poem I am covering with another poem and the dog asleep on the tiles, her head in her paws, her hind legs played out like a frog. How foolish it is to long for childhood, to want to run in circles in the yard again, arms outstretched, pretending to be an airplane. How senseless to dread whatever lies before us when, night and day, the boats, strong as horses in the wind, come and go, bringing in the tiny infants and carrying away the bodies of the dead. ~ from Sailing Alone Around the Room (Random House, 2001)