National Poetry Month
By Pola Rosen, Ed.D.
April is National Poetry Month and a time to read, recite, write and appreciate poetry as well as literature. Since literature and poetry are intertwined, we decided to interview several state poet laureates (see the centerfold) from Oregon, Maryland, Wyoming, South Carolina and Kansas as well as five “local” New York City well-known authors that we were privileged to interview personally. Their words and works are far from local for they resonate in different languages throughout the world.
The ultimate passion of writing, a lonely craft that satisfies so fully when completed, was revealed with wit, honesty, humor and intelligence by Erica Jong, Leila Hadley Luce, Malachy McCourt, Nane Annan and Carol Higgins Clark. Several, independently of each other, quoted a magnificent poem by Yeats expressing that it should be essential reading for young people today. The poem they shared with me and I in turn am passing on to you follows:
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
W.B. Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
