Why Poets Write…


This amazing spider created a web outside my bedroom window. I noticed it today as I was heading around the house to my garden. It stopped me in my tracks and sent me back inside to get my camera. This is what we hope to do as we write poetry. We hope that a line or a thought will make someone stop in their tracks as they read. Only a few people read our poetry, but the hope is that those who do will be inspired and challenged by our words. The spider does not catch all the bugs, but he does catch a few. The few are enough to draw his nourishment and give him strength. This is what poetry does for us as well.

Why Poets Write…

Writing poetry is often like painting….

Not valuable until a century later

Still we write…hoping to connect

With that tweak of imagination

That will light a spark in someone else

We write for the same reason spiders spin


Weaving intricate webs of beauty

Hoping to entangle the imagination

Of one poor soul who might wander in

Creating that one line that will snag them


Stop them in their tracks

Inject them with stunning venom…

That one line that can change a life



Photos: Dwight L. Roth