” Did they change your life?” Jack Foley asked me, commenting on someone’ s poetry. I never thought of poems being life-changing. At least it is not what I think about when I attend a reading or pick up a collection of poetry. “Life-changing” is a tall order. Do poets set out to change lives when they write? If not to change others, does the poet’s writing change the poet? If a poem is to have a place in the universe, what part of the alchemy does it play?
There are poems that I remember. I remember them because they are meaningful to me. They are meaningful because they touch a part of me that was not touched before. If I get a glimpse of something unknown, I have already changed.
“…but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” (1 Corinthians 15:52)
