Poets teach us to look with our own eyes

Poetry should...should strike the reader as a working of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. -John Keats

We are a nation of seekers. We look outside ourselves for salvation, for what our perspective should be, for how and what to think, when turning the looking glass inward would better serve us.

Another Billy, a different one, one who probably didn't care to be called Billy, tells us so. I love his work, too. He will visit us again this month, I'm quite sure. For now, know that you are your own best muse. Treat yourself like one. Trust yourself to your own way of looking at things.

When I met my muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off—they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

-William Stafford 

I think the Keats quote at the start of this post is exactly it. We see in poetry an expression of what we feel, and we recognize it, almost as a remembrance.

Comments

[Carla]

Love the Keats and the Stafford -- YES! Thanks -- I'm so looking forward to this month of poetry. BTW, you've probably already discovered Mary Oliver's CD, At Blackwater Pond, reading her own poetry -- but just in case... Off now to scoop up her newest release. I always recognize my soul in her words. Perhaps this is the month when I'll try my own hand...

[colleen]

Ha! Poetry and kaleidoscopes go so well together. This reminded me of that. gohttp://www.looseleafnotes.com/notes/2005/12/a_poets_tool_of_perception.html

[Pam]

A friend linked me to this site. Nice blog. I will come back and investigate further.