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.
Why I Don’t Pick Up the Phone by Julie Bruck
Because it’s the school nurse saying one child has written on another child and the ink washed off but the writing remains: We can’t read it, but you’d better get down here right now and do something. Because someone is in a locked ward for their own protection, meaning someone else had to commit them, and now walks around with a heart like a hammered anvil. Or, another has fallen and even though you’re next of kin, you’re too far away to catch or comfort. I do not lift the headset; sift instead what’s coming as the tide sorts its affairs. What washes up should bear signs of who it carries, like an eyelash stuck to the edge of a stamp – and no, smartass, I don’t mean caller ID. If I can’t have the living glance of the guy from Western Union when he hands over the onionskin, then just give me two minutes more at the window, kids from the daycare returning to their ark, clinging to their red rope like little shipwreck survivors, before I pick up and let the world name names. ~ from Monkey Ranch (Brick Books, 2012)