Excellence Knows Loneliness
by Odin Roark

To read the honored poets,
Neruda, Angelou, Dickinson, Frost and Whitman.
to merely peruse, acquaint oneself with Pound,
Plath, Tagore, Twain, Emerson, Ginsberg,
Simac, Li-Young Lee, and McGrath,
is to drink of a rare elixir whose destiny is to heal.

For the uninitiated,
there are a few of us mentored through reading the greats,
instilling in us the desire to proffer challenging thought,
wanting not to merely appease,
but to empower.

Many believe poetic purpose is to:

Challenge the resistance of closed minds,
relieve hearts suffocated by Hallmark nonsense,
discourage Dick and Jane, Roses are Red syndromes of ignorance,
And eradicate the insufferable ball-peen hammer self-pity.

Yet…

Simplistic ramblings of “lets find some rhyming words and call it poetry”
pervades far too much of reader’s choices,
drowning lovers of learning in infantile choices,
leaving impoverished those hungry for poetic discourse,
those passionately searching for language of impact,
words to challenge perspectives on life.

If only…

There were fewer rhymists satiating themselves with rhyme for rhyme’s sake,
ignoring a world of inharmonic vibrations,
allowing the dissonance of melody to go unaddressed,
where the reward of attention given
is often tendered appreciatively as reader-trust.

Poets as perpetual students…

Know there is much to be reflected upon,
discovered ideas needing to be molded into original thought,
and an abiding dedication to that often forgotten principal: responsibility.

For the lonely few,
the special reward is enjoyed and cherished as an honorarium.