Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."
I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.
Do Not Expect by Dana Gioia
Do not expect that if your book falls open to a certain page, that any phrase you read will make a difference today, or that the voices you might overhear when the wind moves through the yellow-green and golden tent of autumn, speak to you. Things ripen or go dry. Light plays on the dark surface of the lake. Each afternoon your shadow walks beside you on the wall, and the days stay long and heavy underneath the distant rumor of the harvest. One more summer gone, and one way or another you survive, dull or regretful, never learning that nothing is hidden in the obvious changes of the world, that even the dim reflection of the sun on tall, dry grass is more than you will ever understand. And only briefly then you touch, you see, you press against the surface of impenetrable things. ~ from Daily Horoscopes (Graywolf Press, 1986)