by Neal Whitman

Created on: August 30, 2009

My Profession

Society needs poets? Society high, middle, low is a division of labor. We work. We need to work to make a living. But, poets help us answer the question, "How do I make a life?" Poets, along with the Dreamers and the Saints, are essential to Society we need to know why we work. What is the purpose of it all?

Ants build an ant hill not knowing they are building one. Their brains are too little to "know" of ant hills. Humans are not ants. We are purposeful organisms. We need to know what we are working for. Consider the stone mason. "Yes, I am cutting stone into blocks. But, what I am really doing is building a cathedral."

William Morris opened Earthly Paradise with an apology in which he cut the poet down to size he was merely The idle singer of an empty day. Really? Tell that to a friend who has lost a loved one. Or who has fallen in love.

The wonderful writer and critic, Alfred Kazin, wrote to his friend, Anne Fadiman near the end of his life, that one day, "sick at heart at the struggle with my 82-year old body as I fought a violent cold rainstorm, I finally got home, picked up Hardy's poems and read myself back to life" Hardy began as a house builder. As a poet, be became a life builder.

The lyric poet helps us look what into the human heart; the narrative poet tells the story of our lives. Children need learn the power of words. It starts with "momma, papa, and doggie, " and graduates into nursery rhymes. Childhood poetry behind, adults need learn how to transcend personal ordeals to speak of the human condition. Poetry is essential to Society. How better to remember the Past, attend to Today, anticipate Tomorrow? Poetry. Prose alone will not do. Poetry and Prose: two languages Society requires to be whole.

I profess a belief that poetry can and should be at the core of being.

Poetry is at the core of Life, Death, and Everything in between.

All this I profess

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