I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.

From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot caused by their intimate weight in my lap; I loved the crisp whisper of a page turning, the musky odor of old paper and the sharp inky whiff of new pages. Leather bindings sent me into ecstasy. I even loved to gaze at a closed book and daydream about the possibilities inside.

I tell you, if you feel strange,

strange things will happen to you:
Fallen peacocks on library shelves

Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.

Since she's discovered
men would rather drown
than nibble,
she does just
fine.

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.