POETRY IS VERB, NOT VERBOSE

This morning, had the TV on to catch some of Hilary Clinton's speech as Senate hearings began on her Secretary of State appointment. Was intrigued by her mention that Obama's mother, S. Ann Soetoro, was a pioneer in microfinance in Indonesia.

I've been blessed as a poet -- which is why I could easily give up writing poems today for something else. Occasionally, I think about what that something else could be ... Note, btw, that I'm talking giving up *writing poems* vs giving up *poetry*. Anyway, one of the few careers I'd love to take up is to work in microfinance....I think that's partly how I came up with the Tiny Books series as a fundraiser for Heifer. Coz Heifer's impact is similar to how microfinance, for a relatively small sum, can make a huge empowering difference to impoverished people.

Poetry is not speech. Poetry is action.

Poems mostly don't interest me for their language -- mostly, they interest me for their effect.

It's an interest that paradoxically clashes with the inherent narcissism of making art -- fortunately, poetry also teaches about balancing matter and anti-matter to engender blossoms instead of annihilation....I dispute the notion that creation must always require destruction (sometimes, but not always).

This Poetics Du Jour message presented didactically but lovingly as a public service announcement.