Introduction to Poetry

When Naomi Nye was presenting her poetry to a class, one young man gave her a piece of paper with his address written on it and a message that said, “Write me a poem.” This is what she wrote:

Valentine for Ernest Mann

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco. Walk up to the counter, say, I’ll take two and expect it to be handed back to you

on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.

Anyone who says, Here’s my address, write me a poem, deserves something in

reply. So I’ll tell you a secret instead:

Poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,

they are sleeping. They are shadows

drifting across our ceilings the moment

before we wake up. What we have to do

is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife

two skunks for a valentine.

He couldn’t understand why she was

crying. I thought they had such beautiful eyes.

And he was serious. He was a serious man who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly just because the world said so. He really liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them as valentines and they became beautiful. At least to him. And the poems that had been hiding

in the eyes of the skunks for centuries crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us, we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.

And let me know.

By Naomi Shihab Nye

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