An Anthology of Poems by USNH Students: Volume 3

Congratulations to all of the New Hampshire undergraduate andgraduate-level poets whose work is included in this year's anthology.At UNH, we often have students in introductory poetry classes readthis anthology along with other classic and contemporary poets, so inaddition to congratulations, let me say something even more important: thank you.Thank you for knowing that the world needs poetry today. It needs newways of looking at old problems when the old rehearsed and receivedstances and assumptions no longer seem to work. It needs your feeling, your humor, your wit, and your sense of adventure. It needs the synthesisof metaphor and simile. It needs the compressed meaning that imagesconvey, but only when they are run through the unique miracle of theindividual who lives and feels and remembers things in jumbled ways.Virginia Wolf says that the world never asks for poems, but this anthologyshows that the world needs your poetry, just as the world needs more freepeople of consciousness and compassion and its unlikely twin, humor, needs their fresh eyes, needs their open ears, their impulse to build, tomake from a spirit of play, alertness, and discipline.We also need poetry because poetry helps us remember. The techniquesand arcana of poetry, rhythm, rhyme, even the pauses, the caesuras, thepunctuation, and the withheld punctuation are all in the service of theentertainment of memory. When we remember a poem, we remember tofeel, to live with our senses. We remember the rawness of feeling and therelief and pleasure of play. And the voices of poets, being companionable, being good company, remind us we are not alone. These are all reasonsfor gratitude. Once again, thank you, poets and readers. And all readersof poems become poets when they read. Thank you.David Blair, M.F.A.Lecturer of PoetryDepartment of English, MFA Writing ProgramThe University of New Hampshire

Pagina's: 154, Editie: 2026 ed., Paperback, Yas Press