I reckon – when I count at all -/ First – Poets – Then the Sun -/ Then Summer – Then the Heaven of God – And then – the List is done -// But, looking back – the First so seems/ To Comprehend the Whole -/ The Others look a needless Show -/ So I write – Poets – All -// Their Summer – lasts a Solid Year – They can afford a Sun/ The East – would deem extravagant – And if the Further Heaven -/ Be Beautiful as they prepare/ For Those who worship Them -/ It is too difficult a Grace-/ To justify the Dream –

Emily Dickinson

I took a poetry course in college. I read a lot of beautiful poetry. I wrote a lot of awful poetry. I came away from the experience, as I do every time I take a closer look at poetry, a more humble servant of words, drinking a cocktail of envy and gratitude. Placing Poets before the Sun, Summer, and Heaven on the List does not seem like too far a stretch. Even a Solid Year of Summer in a poet’s world make sense.

I celebrate poets. Delicate precision that has an economics all its own. Just-enough (sometimes too much, but worth every syllable) decadence. Photographic melody that places us exactly where our mind’s must go. Emotion that is sometimes swaddled sometimes laid bare. Wounds healing in real time. Perfect rhythm that haunts and rhymes when necessary. Tailored metaphors that explode simple comparison. Kaleidoscopic vision of an imperfect world. Truth told slant and straightforward. Dreams manifest in words. Poets carry that graceful load.