national-poetry-month

Dare to love yourselfas if you were a rainbowwith gold at both ends.

Poetry empowers the simplest of lives to confront the most extreme sorrows with courage, and motivates the mightiest of offices to humbly heed lessons in compassion.

To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.

The act of writing itself is much like the construction of a mirror made of words. Looking at certain illuminated corners of or cracks within the mirror, the author can see fragments of an objective reality that comprise the physical universe, social communities, political dynamics, and other facets of human existence. Looking in certain other corners of the same mirror, he or she may experience glimpses of a True Self sheltered deftly behind a mask of public proprieties.

The American identity has never been a singular one and the voices of poets invariably sing, in addition to their own, the voices of those around them.

On faith__ battered back calm eyes etch prayers that cool a nation__ hot rage.

You are the hybrids of golden worlds and ages splendidly conceived.

In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder, when the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organizations, and when broken hearts bleed pain in darkness without the relief of compassion, the voice of an exceptional poet producing exceptional work is not something the world can afford to dismiss.

A poet is a verb that blossoms light in gardens of dawn, or sometimes midnight.

The music of revelation announces itself to the reader in somber brooding tones or in melodies light as air and one is invited to dance with the most captivating of partners: poetry.

When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry, he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.

The birth of a true poet is neither an insignificant event nor an easy delivery. Complications generally begin long before the fated soul carries its dubious light into whatever womb has been kind enough to volunteer the intricate machinery of its blood and prayers and muscles for a gestation period much longer than nine months or even nine years.

No non-poetic account of reality can be complete.

The same hot lightning that burns your blood with passion__ cools your fears with peace.

At the edge of madness you howl diamonds and pearls.

In a world gushing blood day and night, you never stop mopping up pain.

won't you celebrate with mewhat i have shaped intoa kind of life? i had no model.born in babylonboth nonwhite and womanwhat did i see to be except myself?i made it uphere on this bridge betweenstarshine and clay,my one hand holding tightmy other hand; come celebratewith me that everydaysomething has tried to kill meand has failed.

Hearts rebuilt from hope resurrect dreams killed by hate.