Finding a new poet <br />is like finding a new wildflower <br />out in the woods. You don't see <br /> <br />its name in the flower books, and <br />nobody you tell believes <br />in its odd color or the way <br /> <br />its leaves grow in splayed rows <br />down the whole length of the page. In fact <br />the very page smells of spilled <br /> <br />red wine and the mustiness of the sea <br />on a foggy day - the odor of truth <br />and of lying. <br /> <br />And the words are so familiar, <br />so strangely new, words <br />you almost wrote yourself, if only <br /> <br />in your dreams there had been a pencil <br />or a pen or even a paintbrush, <br />if only there had been a flower.<br /><br />Linda Pastan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-new-poet/
