Frenemies, Part II

I used to hate poetry universally, but over the years I’ve *slowly* come to *occasionally* appreciate the way poets are able to articulate ideas and emotions I’m dispossessed of words to properly express. From time to time I’ll be grabbing coffee with a friend—trying to piece together a word of encouragement, or struggling to properly explain my hot mess of a life, or failing to put words to gratitude or hope or pain—and a snippet of a poem will come to mind, an epiphany, a perfect encapsulation of empathy I could never achieve on my own. I’m stopped dead in my tracks at the significance of pronounced emotion, and I’m grateful for the staggering power of the written word.

Today I’m feelin Kitchenette Building by Gwendolyn Brooks, and want to celebrate it here.

You can read more about my reluctant friendship with poetry here, and you can see more poems I love to not hate here.

* * *

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong
Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.”

But could a dream send up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms

Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

—Gwendolyn Brooks
1963