Why Poetry Can Be Hard For Most People

Why Poetry Can Be Hard For Most People

by Dorothea Lasky

Because speaking to the dead is not something you want to do

When you have other things to do in your day

Like take out the trash or use the vacuum

In the edge between the stove and cupboard

Because the rat is everywhere

Crawling around

Or more so walking

And it is doesn't even notice you

It has its own intentions

And is searching for that perfect bag of potato chips like you once were

Because life is no more important than eating

Or fucking

Or talking someone into fucking

Or talking someone into something

Or sleeping calmly and soundly

And all you can hope for are the people who put that calm in you

Or let you go into it with dignity

Because poetry reminds you

That there is no dignity

In living

You just muddle through and for what

Jack Jack you wrote to him

You wrote to all of us

I wasn't even born

You wrote to me

A ball of red and green shifting sparks

In my parents' eye

You wrote to me and I just listened

I listened I listened I tell you

And I came back

No

Poetry is hard for most people

Because of sound 

 About This Poem

"I wrote 'Why Poetry Can Be Hard For Most People' after reading and teaching some of Jack Spicer's letters to Lorca. I became bewitched by the idea that we are always speaking to the dead when we write poems, especially Spicer's line, 'You are dead and the dead are very patient.' I think the communication between the dead and undead is so full of real emotion because of its patience. Poetry is patient, too."--Dorothea Lasky

About Dorothea Lasky

Born on March 27, 1978, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dorothea Lasky received her B.A. from Washington University. She continued her studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she received her M.F.A. She has also earned a masters degree in arts and education from Harvard University and a PhD in creativity and education from the University of Pennsylvania.  Lasky is the author of two books of poetry, AWE (Wave Books, 2007), and Black Life (Wave Books, 2010). She has also authored numerous chapbooks and pamphlets, most recently Poetry is Not a Project (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). She lives in New York.