About Poetry in Times Like These
(I tried to find the artist of this. If you know, please tell me.) At an AWP conference in Chicago, I encountered a vast ballroom filled with writers and poets. They were listening to one poet, Marie Ponsot, whose talk, a sign by the door announced, was entitled "The Poet's Responsibility." When I had seen the title in the conference schedule I had shuddered. I wouldn't go, I told myself. Why go when I know I don't fulfill my responsibility? Why go when I know it will leave me feeling utterly and profoundly irresponsible. Yet, I had stumbled into the very ballroom I'd vowed to avoid (those who go to AWP's perhaps know this form of disorientation). Rather than lambast us for not doing enough, though, Ms. Ponsot said this: "A poet's job is to pay attention and to write good poems." She repeated this. "A poet's job is to pay attention and to write good poems." I ponder it still because I paid very close attention