Is Poetry as Necessary as Food?

landscape-1629977_1920As a poet, I recognize poetry’s tremendous importance to a society. Still, I can get caught up in the complexities of modern life: I have classes to teach, papers to read and grade, writing projects demanding equal attention, a family to care for. Therefore, it’s easy to forget that poetry is as necessary to our well being as food, though when I say this to my students, they look at me skeptically. Continue reading “Is Poetry as Necessary as Food?”

Poetry in Dreams (Part 2)

colorful-1868353_1920In my last post, “The Poetry in Dreams,” I promised to talk next time about how one “gets” a poem. Here is my attempt to deal with that topic.

To understand either a dream or a poem, we need to develop a new faculty, a “third eye.” William Stafford has another way of saying this: Continue reading “Poetry in Dreams (Part 2)”