100 Ways Poetry Is In Your Life

I was out with a friend recently and he disclosed something troubling. He said that, as to poetry, he'd come to a point in his life in which he just couldn't see the purpose of it anymore. Of poems specifically, or poetry generally. Writing it, reading it, thinking about it. Somewhere along the line the art had become tainted, for him, by certain of its manifestations, certain of its practitioners, certain of its communal practices. And while I wanted to console him -- more than console; I wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him from his complacency -- I found I had no words with which to do so, as I myself had not written a poem in some time, had become increasingly jaded about poets and poems and poetry and "poetries" and poetics.

Two days later -- that is, today -- I found myself driving in my car, reflecting on that moment of silence and inaction. I had a moment, in the midst of that reflection, in which it seemed poetry was gone from my life as well, possibly for good. Then I stopped -- more than stopped; I grabbed myself by my collar and shook myself from my complacency -- and considered how poetry suffuses my life in a way nothing else but sleep and dreaming has ever done in such quantity and with such persistence. And suddenly, as I drove my car down Gorham Street in Madison, I realized that there is rarely a moment in my life that is not profoundly touched by poetry, or in which I'm not seeking to infuse my life with poetry, whether or not I've recently written a poem with which I'm satisfied. So I thought I'd come home and enumerate some of the ways poetry is in my life, and in all our lives, partly as a reminder to myself and partly as encouragement to my friend and any others similarly beset by doubts about poetry and its place. This post is the result of that process of self-analysis and self-measurement.

Poetry is in your life, of course, when you read a poem for pleasure, but also when you memorize a poem as a means of self-instruction. When you write a single word or phrase that one day may find its place in a poem, or when the muse smiles at you and you write a poem in its entirety all at once. When you meet a muse for the first time, even if you don't yet speak. When you revise an old poem, or when you create an erasure of a poem written by another. When you transcribe a poem, whether your own or someone else's, for any reason. When you remember a word or phrase from a poem written by another. When you remember a word or phrase from a poem you wrote yourself. When you try to remember words you know are of grave importance to your future but cannot, so long as you dearly wish to. When you try to forget words of grave significance from your past and are successful because you've acknowledged the capacities and incapacities and incapacitating capacities of language. When you concentrate on a given parcel of language so long and so devoutly that the material and meaning of that language is fundamentally challenged and changed.

When you buy a book of poetry, online or in a bookstore. When you browse the poetry section of a bookstore and don't buy. When you read a print or online literary magazine, or when you submit your own work to such a magazine. When you edit a magazine or press, or simply spread the word that a new magazine or press has been born or that an old magazine or press is in trouble and needs help. When you donate time or money to an organization that helps poets in need or promotes poets who haven't yet been widely read. When you donate books of poetry you've written or that anyone else has written to anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. When you buy someone a book of poetry. When you loan someone a book of poetry. When you recommend to someone a book of poetry. When you help design, bind, distribute, or promote a book of poetry someone else has written. When you self-publish your work, whether online or in a broadside or on the side of any building or object you've been granted permission to write upon. When you use language without permission, when you change the terms of a discussion permanently by changing its language.

When you read the personal blog of a poet, or when you read an article about poetry in the national media. When you read literary theory that touches on aesthetics or poetics, whether or not you find yourself thinking, later, how little that theory circumscribes your own aesthetics or poetics. When you participate in a workshop. When you participate in a poetics group. When you review a book of poetry. When you read a review of a book of poetry. When you explain some aspect of poetry to a non-poet. When you write an essay about poetry or being a poet. When you teach poetry or poetics to those less experienced with both or either. When you help others find a job teaching poetry or poetics. When you make yourself available to speak with and answer questions from students of poetry or poetics. When you seek a degree in either area yourself. When you encourage and give heart to others with that ambition or any ambition likely to increase the common stock of love for and understanding of poetry. When you participate in any grassroots campaign to increase the common stock of love for and understanding of poetry. When you attend a conference of any size or duration or purpose primarily attended by poets or others who love poetry. When you attend a fellowship or residency. When you apply for or receive a grant to make writing poetry for more hours each day financially feasible.

When you share a poem, whether privately with a friend or at a public reading. When you attend a reading given by others. When you meet new people who are poets or spend time with old friends who are poets, even if you don't discuss poetry but merely allow their novel way of seeing to conjoin with your own. When you contact a poet, whether you knew them previously or otherwise, through any form of print or online media, in the hope of seeing things through their eyes, however briefly. When you let a poet know you appreciate what they've done or what they're doing. When you sign a copy of a book you've written to let a reader know how much you appreciate their time and thoughtfulness.

When there's a single word no daily tribulation permits you to forget for hours on end. When you invent a new word by accident or design. When you mishear a word or phrase in a conversation or a lyric and prefer the mishearing. When you silently quibble with a word you've read in any medium. When you save, in any fashion or for any purpose, a piece of language you've encountered in any context. When you gently and tactfully and without condescension correct the grammar of another, not because grammar is a skill-set but because grammar is ever and always inextricably tied to content. When you exhibit, in any fora or through any media, a passion for honest communication. When, in any context, you say a thing well, or see a thing well, or hear a thing well, or smell a thing well, and you know it. When you permit yourself to be mindful that life is context every bit as much as all language is context. When that realization drives you to the sort of empathy that lasts.

When you find a new way to express an old idea. When you write a word in a place you ought not write it, and when you write to someone you ought not write to. When you exhibit wit with a pun. When you describe a thing by its relation or resemblance to another thing or refuse to describe something in the interest of saving it from damage. When you laugh at yourself, and when you laugh despite yourself. When you smile secretly, and when you smile for only one other to see. When you hope. When you listen to music. When you write or perform your own music. When you share music written and performed by others via online social media. When you allow language its potential transparencies, in any context, and when you acknowledge also its many necessary materialities, in any context.

When you wish. When you pray. When you sing. When you cry at beauty. When you imagine yourself in a storybook. When you read a storybook whose prose is shot through with poetry. When you take a mental picture. When you meditate. When you keep secrets none will ever know. When you handwrite someone a letter. When you surprise someone with the vehemence of your love. When you surprise yourself with the vehemence of your love. When you love without hope of happiness, when you love secretly, when you love and that love is not requited or love and lose that love forever. When you dare to be spectacular, and when you dare admit the spectacular to the workaday. When you dare fight for the welfare of another, and when you fight for your own honor in the face of others' silence. When you break a silence. When you maintain your integrity under harsh conditions, and when you fight to regain your integrity after having lost it too easily or tarnished it too lightly. When you weather the threat of death, when you weather your waking fears. When you save someone from any ill, and when you save yourself from any new foolishness or self-sabotage. When you face your death with bravery. When you die and discover what's next.