WEBVTT

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I'll read a little bit from the
opening chapter of the book,

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which is called "A Poem is a
Tool for Careful Listening."

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Throughout my
reading life, poems

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have greeted me with what
feels like urgent compassion.

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When I'm lost or afraid,
the speakers of poems

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assure me that my feelings are
nothing to hide from or deny.

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Indeed, that vulnerability,
uncertainty, and even

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desperation are not
only signs of life,

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but tools for moving forward
toward courage, hope,

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and purpose.

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When I'm confident
in my convictions,

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poems alert me to
complexities I've

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failed or been
unwilling to regard.

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And like the best of
friends, somehow the poems

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I've loved for years managed
to keep evolving, meeting me

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where I am.

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And then how do they do it?

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leading me still further
along toward what

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will startle, console,
and even change me.

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I shouldn't be surprised.

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Our very selves from
day-to-day are the result

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of where we've been, what we've
seen, how we've hurt and healed,

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and what we are on the threshold
even now of discovering.

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We never cease in our becoming.

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Neither does this art
form, this confidante,

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this tool designed to
remind us how it feels

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and why it matters to love,
to remember, to ache, to fear,

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to be astonished by
what our minds can make

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and what our spirits
can withstand.

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I wish I could say
to everyone who

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lives with the fear of
poetry, you don't always

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have to understand it.

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You can let it nudge you.

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Let it cause something to stir.

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The sounds of words gliding
along next to one another.

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The glimpse of an image, a
face, a body taking flight.

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Rain hammering
down in the night.

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The difference
between the droplets

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hitting the houses and
those landing in trees.

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A blanket of sound covering
everything it sees.

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What I mean is, I don't always
understand the poems I admire.

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Sometimes poems operate
by a logic that eludes me

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the way dreams often do.

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Sometimes like a conversation
with a wonderful stranger,

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a poem speaks to
me in words I know,

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while leading me down paths that
are startling and unfamiliar.

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Some poems seem to carry me
away from my usual thoughts,

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my usual self, which
can feel like a gift.

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How often do we feel overwhelmed
in the lives we know?

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How often does the world as
we have come to recognize it,

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the world as we've been taught
to see it fill us with fright?

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Far from something
to fear, I'd say

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that poetry is an art form
that allows us to redefine

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our relationship
to fear by stepping

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in close to the facets of
the world that we don't like

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or don't understand.

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Often enough, these
are the same things.

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Often enough, it is the illusion
of extraordinary distance,

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blurring out details
and shrouding

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motives in shadow that makes
us fearsome to one another.

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Not always, of course,
but often enough.

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It's not always possible to
test out such a theory in life,

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but poems are built
to bridge distances

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of all kinds between
people and events separated

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from one another by time,
geography, temperament,

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and belief.

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A poem can even traverse the
distance between the living

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and the dead.

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If you're reading these pages
because you love poetry,

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then I would like
to convince you

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that poems, if
you allow them to,

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can help you to love every other
thing in the world around you.

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Imagine that.

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Imagine what it
would mean to allow

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a poem, which can empower
you beyond the apprehension

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of threat, to move you closer
and closer to that which you

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do not love, allowing you to
observe, imagine, and feel

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your way past
indifference or suspicion

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and toward recognition.

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Let's leave it there
for the time being,

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because recognition is the
threshold for a great deal more.

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And if you've read this far
because poetry is something

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that you do not as of yet love,
something that has made you feel

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confused or self-conscious
or inadequate,

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then my wish is to convince
you that the opposite of love

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is not hatred or
rancor, but fear.

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And to help you clear that
impediment from this and perhaps

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other contexts in
your life, I want

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to do this not for but with you
because you and I are not alone.

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We dwell together in a
world riddled with reasons

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for despair, a
world brimming, too,

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with forms of beauty
that fill us with awe,

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joy, wonder, fear
on the one hand,

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and something like
love on the other.

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I'm going to read you--

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oh, thanks.

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You're so sweet.

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But you don't have to.

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I'm going to wear you
out, going back and forth.

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I'm just going to assume that
there's constant applause going

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on somewhere.