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.
Poetry Is... by Robert Priest
there are those who lay bricks there are those who break rocks with picks there are those who work on assembly belts there are those who care for children there are sex workers and there are those who make poems turn on the belt and begin the great clacking of the typewriter smashing at the rock in the paper thumping at the door in the paper pushing at the bird in the paper shaping and re-shaping the poem holding it up to the light there is the carpenter and then further along down the river is the poet filling up, systematically the clean white rectangle clang clang clang his silver hammer arcs high in the sun as he cracks through the mica surface jang jang jang as he shatters the diamonds there looking for bright truths poetry is manual labour ~ from Blue Pyramids (ECW Press, 2002)