“…whenever I see poems…shared all over, it helps me realize how essential poetry is to people all over the world, not just poets.” — Todd Dillard, Poet of the Week
Thank you for this! I loved the interview, and “How to Live” joins a very short list of joyful, uplifting poems that really struck me.
For me, the sadness in a poem really draws me in. I often wish I wasn’t a magnet for melancholy, but I am. The poetry that falls from within me seems to always be laced with trauma while I’m going through it, a reckoning piece after I’ve reclaimed myself, or based on memories of more sadness.
I do get a lot of feedback that people relate to it, and that it’s helped them feel less alone, but I will celebrate the heck out of the day. I write a poem, born from Joy that is genuine and speaks to others too.
All that to say, Bravo, Todd Dillard!
His work really moved me, and in the right direction.
What a wonderful human being Tom is…. And I was so moved by his poetry. Maybe at its core, the poetry that stays with us are those that feel like an exchange of understanding with another individual existence.
The poems that have the greatest historical impact employ features of writing and the other arts that are closed to them, partially hidden rhymes and rhythms, the use of metaphor, and the most direct voice of a unique personality, its point of view and its unique psychology. The latter betrays the honesty of having lived at a particular time and place without engaging too deeply in its politics. On several occasions, the British people have been surveyed on their favorite poem, two of the winners from separate eras have been "The Tyger" by William Blake and "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin. They are notable for the amount of passionate music and thought they contain, often without direct reference to the author. Other examples from the 20th century include "The Second Coming" by Yeats and Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts." A surprising number of such poems from Keats to the present are ekphrastic in nature. Others deal explosively and successfully with the personal, Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell are good examples. Today there is a great deal of emphasis on pure invention and social background; in my opinion, such poems are bound to fail without the music, the passion and personal honesty inherent in the most popular of poems.
Of course it has to be artful, impactful, inventive, vivid and honest.
But I'll go ahead be the one to say this: Popularity does not represent quality. I've read plenty of poems in supposedly prestigious magazines that sound like every other flowery Instagram post. In my opinion, they cater to that style because it's more palatable by general audiences that laud them for being inspirational. This is why I don't tell people I write, because of the "mainstream" stigma, that I'm trying to make the world a happier place. I'm not. I can't. I can only try to relate to you with our most basic human emotions.
Quoting everyone's favorite curmudgeon: unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it.
What makes a poem popular is the one thing poets can’t control: readers. A popular poem resonates in harmony with the same frequency its readers do. This is an intensely personal process but highly unpredictable. And this is the successful poet’s job, to write poems not only from the deeply personal but from those mysterious forces that pass through us and extend far beyond ourselves. It’s like walking in the rain instead of staying dry inside.
Thank you for this! I loved the interview, and “How to Live” joins a very short list of joyful, uplifting poems that really struck me.
For me, the sadness in a poem really draws me in. I often wish I wasn’t a magnet for melancholy, but I am. The poetry that falls from within me seems to always be laced with trauma while I’m going through it, a reckoning piece after I’ve reclaimed myself, or based on memories of more sadness.
I do get a lot of feedback that people relate to it, and that it’s helped them feel less alone, but I will celebrate the heck out of the day. I write a poem, born from Joy that is genuine and speaks to others too.
All that to say, Bravo, Todd Dillard!
His work really moved me, and in the right direction.
What a wonderful human being Tom is…. And I was so moved by his poetry. Maybe at its core, the poetry that stays with us are those that feel like an exchange of understanding with another individual existence.
The poems that have the greatest historical impact employ features of writing and the other arts that are closed to them, partially hidden rhymes and rhythms, the use of metaphor, and the most direct voice of a unique personality, its point of view and its unique psychology. The latter betrays the honesty of having lived at a particular time and place without engaging too deeply in its politics. On several occasions, the British people have been surveyed on their favorite poem, two of the winners from separate eras have been "The Tyger" by William Blake and "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin. They are notable for the amount of passionate music and thought they contain, often without direct reference to the author. Other examples from the 20th century include "The Second Coming" by Yeats and Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts." A surprising number of such poems from Keats to the present are ekphrastic in nature. Others deal explosively and successfully with the personal, Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell are good examples. Today there is a great deal of emphasis on pure invention and social background; in my opinion, such poems are bound to fail without the music, the passion and personal honesty inherent in the most popular of poems.
Of course it has to be artful, impactful, inventive, vivid and honest.
But I'll go ahead be the one to say this: Popularity does not represent quality. I've read plenty of poems in supposedly prestigious magazines that sound like every other flowery Instagram post. In my opinion, they cater to that style because it's more palatable by general audiences that laud them for being inspirational. This is why I don't tell people I write, because of the "mainstream" stigma, that I'm trying to make the world a happier place. I'm not. I can't. I can only try to relate to you with our most basic human emotions.
Quoting everyone's favorite curmudgeon: unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it.
https://poets.org/poem/so-you-want-be-writer
Yes, and thank you. Only agreement here.
Poetry for me is born through eureka moment s 😊
What makes a poem popular is the one thing poets can’t control: readers. A popular poem resonates in harmony with the same frequency its readers do. This is an intensely personal process but highly unpredictable. And this is the successful poet’s job, to write poems not only from the deeply personal but from those mysterious forces that pass through us and extend far beyond ourselves. It’s like walking in the rain instead of staying dry inside.