Fun thread. As I mentioned on the "Discerning Eye" board, Timothy Steele's fine new book
Toward the Winter Solstice includes a poem, "A Muse," about poetic inspiration. It appears his muse is a harsh (or at least stand-offish and unpredictable) mistress!
I don't know if it's appropriate to post the poem here, since the book is just out, and the poem is also in the current issue of
The Threepenny Review. But you can find it on
Threepenny's website at this link:
http://www.threepennyreview.com/samp...eele_sp06.html
Another poem about poetry that I like is Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Populist Manifesto," in which he urges contemporary poets to stop speaking in code directed only to other poets, to come down out of their towers, and again be Whitman's wild children and swingers of birches. You can find it at this link:
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.a...745&poem=31768