Poetry has always sung to me, ever since I first read it in Highlights magazine at the dentist’s office. (Odd that I remember that so clearly.) Later, I asked the school librarian if poetry was available in books. Poetry felt like treasure to me, something exalted above mere words.

In high school, I encountered e.e. cummings’ poetry, which felt closest to the heart. Considered an avant garde poet, he usually wrote without capital letters and often without punctuation and his syntax was outside the norm, all of which appealed to my teen self. “At the time of his death, September 3, 1962, he was the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost.” (poets.org) A complicated and controversial person, I am grateful for e.e. cummings’ poetry, which still causes me to stop, savor, consider, and wonder.

“i thank You God for most this amazing
day for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes”

from “i thank You God for most this amazing” (1950)