Art - Tracy K. Smith’s words (her poem inspired this post) beg us to “change the scale on which we think and believe in what poetry makes you feel - and to see both acts as actual work.”
Heart - Toni Morrison talks about moving through her own tenderness, reckoning with a bruised and bleeding world, and “though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.”
Fart - My newest culinary mentor, Joe Yonan, writes love letters to plants with a flaming focus on beans extolling everything from flavor to versatility to the magic of their music-citing, what may be for many of us, one of the earliest (playground) poems we learn.
Dart- Venice R Williams, Milwaukee activist, writer, healer and elder sage, Writes! A! Poem! (Not to be confused with the tennis player extraordinaire who is one part of this poetry in motion).