Don’t Fear the Poem

Don’t fear the poem.
Baby take my hand.
We’ll be able to fly.
Don’t fear the poem.
La la la la la la la . . .

Apologies to Blue Oyster Cult. When I tell people I am a poet,

A. They run screaming far to uninhabited lands.

B. They want to share their own poems with me.

C. They make a hand gesture to ward off evil.

D. They stare blankly and then change the subject.

I don’t think it’s the notion of being a poet that scares people–it’s the poems themselves. So many of us have scary memories of being made to “interpret” poems when we were in school and feeling like losers for not “getting it.” But poets don’t care if you “get it”–they just want you to be open to it. What’s that “it”? I can’t exactly define it. But you know it when you experience it.

Thus, folks, to clear up all these vague pronoun issues, you gotta come out to the museum. Tomorrow, February 9, is the big day: Dog from Hell: V-Day ROMP. If you think that a poetry museum has nothing to offer you, you are wrong. You are a human being, and thus you need poetry. Let me prove it to you.

–Shaun Perkins