Poets force you to see things differently.
Poets get you to feel things you weren’t already feeling.
Poets influence you with words.

Advertisers rarely make you crack open an eye.
Advertisers rarely make you feel anything but indifference.
Advertisers rarely use the right words.

Unless the advertiser writes like a poet.

A groan echoed through the terminal.  A gate change, and now another delay.  Grumbling, shaking heads slumped in their seats.  Then it appeared, a small white rabbit on a mother’s hand, and a two-year-old boy became unaware of the discontent surrounding him.  His laughter?  Contagious! …infecting smiles on travelers of all ages.  Smiles? In an airport? The power of puppets.  Your puppet smiles are waiting for you at Toy House in downtown Jackson.

But how do you learn to write like a poet?

Roy H. Williams told me that we write as well as we read. He told me to go get a poem-a-day book. If you want to write poetry, you have to read poetry.

I took his advice and got this book.

You should get one, too.

Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Read one poem a day. Read it two or three times. Read it out loud and try to figure out how it would sound in the author’s voice. You won’t need a whole year to see your own writing begin to improve.