Self-acceptance for Poets

I love being a poet. I love expressing myself in words. There’s nothing quite like that feeling when a poem begins to come together, the words and images connecting in moving and surprising ways. I happily devote innumerable hours to building an object from words, trying out various expressions, line breaks, and odd enjambments in order to create the zing that only poetry delivers.

On a good day, when the topic for a poem arrives seemingly out of the air, I’ll drop everything to engage in that delightful back-and-forth activity we call writing. Wherever I happen to be, the poem is with me, working its way through my neural pathways, altering and enhancing my thought processes. As I push a shopping cart through the grocery store aisles, or wait for an appointment at a doctor’s office, or pull weeds in my garden, the poem never leaves me. Once begun, a poem takes on a life independent from mine, offering new possibilities for me to write down.

So why do I hesitate when people ask me what I do? Why do I vacillate when someone I just met wants to know how I spend my precious hours? Why do I answer, “I’m a writer and I write reviews and articles, and I’m a teacher and a writing coach,” but leave out poetry, the most important part of my writing practice, the one I’ve been working at since I was eight years old?

The sad truth is that for many people, poetry conjures up a series of negative connotations. I’ve met too many people who are still recovering from the torture they experienced in a high school English class. You probably remember this one too: the teacher, after assigning a poem which no one bothered to read, begins, as Billy Collins wrote in “Introduction to Poetry,” “beating it with a hose / to find out what it really means.” 

This painful exercise, repeated in classrooms all over America, has convinced most people to stay away from poetry at all costs. They go through their lives happily ignorant of poetry and poets until they encounter someone like me, whose mere existence forces them to recall those deeply unpleasant memories.

When I was Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California, I had to be upfront with the fact that yes, I did write poetry. For three years, I dealt with those uncomfortable moments. But I also heard stories about how important poetry was for some people. I was asked, over and over, if I’d ever heard of Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and Mary Oliver. It touched me that poetry was vital in these people’s lives, so much so that right after meeting me, some recited poems they’d memorized years earlier. It was as if they’d been waiting their whole lives to share an intimate secret.

I know that poetry is important, and that being a poet is important, and that if I just blurted it out I might have one of those wonderful experiences. Still, I hesitate.

Saying you’re a poet will almost always produce a moment of silence while the person who asked deals with the surprise. Then they might respond with “So what’s your day job?” or “My kid won a poetry contest in the third grade” or “oh, I’m so sorry, but I have to go now” (actual responses I have received). Most of the time, therefore, I just don’t bring it up.

Every once in a while, though, I’ll feel confident enough to answer honestly when someone asks what I do all day. Perhaps the person seems more open to the idea, or maybe I’m having an unexpected surge of faith in humanity. 

“I’m a poet,” I’ll say. 

Poets, do you have a snappy answer to the “what do you do?” question? If so, please share in the comments. Thank you.