I do not have a favorite poem.

I do not have a favorite poem.

A poem is something that happens to you without intention or choice.

Backing  out of your garage, you hit the building and knock off your sideview mirror. The rest of the day you see things differently.  

Whitman is like that. Who gets up in the morning and says, I think I’ll meet someone today who is so absolutely weird, someone I can’t forget, can’t ever escape. Whitman happens to you. You don’t happen to Whitman.

You are tired. You stumble around the kitchen late at night trying to get a glass of water, you drop the bottle, step on the glass, your foot is bleeding.  You would never make a plan to have that wound.

Shakespeare is like that. You would never choose  to know  the world is that cruel, that horrible, that beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. You only meant to go to a play or do your reading assignment and you will never be the same again.

You can read poetry, and close read it and turn it inside out and shake it,  but a poem is something that happens to you.