When My Students Ask Why They Need Poetry
What should I say? Because perhaps they don’t.
Now. Or next year. Or ever. These poems won’t
get them a job or raise. They may never
feel a connection, need, or desire,
but they may also find in the waiting
room, at the head of the banquet table
along the road, or by the grave, a poem
will say for them what they cannot. Maybe
they should consider poetry a type
of insurance, like extra batteries,
fire extinguishers, something in case
of emotional emergencies, or
dry socks, a spare key, money stashed away,
a handy resource for what lies ahead.
But even if poems are useful to some,
what of the others? Perhaps it’s better
to consider me a kind of merchant
offering poems like bottles of fine wine
so after they have accomplished their goals
of money, fame, and love, and find they have
time for luxuries like literature,
they’ll discover, stacked away, a cellar
of ripened poems, waiting to be savored.
What should I say to my students? Maybe
this: Whatever you think of these, take some.
They don’t cost you much now and may be worth
a great deal later if you should live long
enough to return to them. I hope you will. |
