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.

When I Am Asked by Lisel Mueller

When I am asked 
how I began writing poems, 
I talk about the indifference of nature. 

It was soon after my mother died, 
a brilliant June day, 
everything blooming. 

I sat on a gray stone bench 
in a lovingly planted garden, 
but the day lilies were as deaf 
as the ears of drunken sleepers 
and the roses curved inward. 
Nothing was black or broken 
and not a leaf fell 
and the sun blared endless commercials 
for summer holidays. 

I sat on a gray stone bench 
ringed with the ingenue faces 
of pink and white impatiens 
and placed my grief 
in the mouth of language, 
the only thing that would grieve with me. 

~ from Alive Together (Louisiana State University Press, 1996)