“Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as his own.” Salvatore Quasimodo 1901-1968, Italian poet, translator, and winner of Nobel Prize for Literature.

I got my hair cut last week and my stylist asked what I’d been reading lately. When I told her a lot of poetry for National Poetry Month, she predictably scrunched up her nose. “The last poetry I read was in high school when they forced us to read that stuff. Pretty much turned me off.” Then she laughed and shivered a little like she’d just tasted something awful.

The response didn’t surprise me, but it always makes me a little sad when it happens. Literature classes have changed since I had poetry in high school. I remember Mr. Spraw’s and Mrs. Stepro’s support and encouragement (and I’m forever grateful!) when I wrote some little things in Freshmen and Sophomore English, but remember few poets. Frost? Auden? Plath? Angelou? cummings?

I remember iambic pentameter, rhyme patterns of sonnets, and metaphor, but remember little from discussions about the content. I don’t fault my teachers. My lack of memory says more about me! Looking at some of the modern poets from back then, I wonder if my peers would have a different taste for poetry if we’d heard and discussed works from some of these women: Denise Levertov, Louise Bogan, Gwendolyn Brooks.

Denise was born in England but became an important voice in the American avant-garde movement. Lovertov’s poem, Sharks, paints a picture at dusk as sharks start appearing, and in Two Girls Discover the Secret of Life, it’s a line from one of her other poems that reveals the secret … sort of. Both poems would’ve been opportunities for discussion in a time of transition; when my classmates and I wore POW bracelets, Home Ec. classes were less popular than college-track classes, and we were starting to hear the whispers of AIDS.

Louise Bogan was the first woman to hold the post of Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (now called the United States Poet Laureate). Her poem Medusa could’ve led to discussions on Greek mythology, her Words for Departure on how and why we say goodbye.

Gwendolyn Brooks was the first Black woman to hold the post of Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (now called the United States Poet Laureate). Paul Robeson and We Real Cool would have introduced the Black voice in a town that had no Blacks.

Granted with the internet, today’s students have more access to modern poets than my classmates and I did. With the wealth of contemporary poets, students are hearing voices that speak like they do, about topics that matter to them. Poets have written about intense love and unrequited love, war, God, social justice, and nature for hundreds of years. But after judging submissions for the local Youth Poets Laureate for two years, I’m aware some of today’s topics are deeper and more difficult than Pound, Whitman, and Dickinson could have ever imagined or put into words.

We’re all familiar with Amanda Gorman, but she’s only one of many current stars. There’s Jericho Brown, Ada Limon, Ina Carino, Simon Shieh, Amanda Gunn, Carolina Hotchandani, … and so many more.

Through these new poets, students are given a door to explore and appreciate the poets that made my friend scrunch up her nose. That all bodes well for poetry. Because it matters.

This is my last post for this year’s National Poetry Month! I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting some of my friends. I thought these last two quotes–Salvatore Quasimodo’s and Joy Harjo’s–get to the heart of why poets write.

“When I began to listen to poetry, it’s when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to others. And I think, most importantly for all of us, then you begin to learn to listen to the soul, the soul of yourself in here, which is also the soul of everyone else.” Joy Harjo 1951- American poet, musician, and first Native American to hold the post of United States Poet Laureate.

I hope you all have a lovely week. See you Monday!