Marjorie Pagel

  The Work of the Poet
             
The work of the poet is to name what is holy*
 to find the sacred in a parade of ordinary days
 to single out the neglected phrase, the forgotten image
 summoning them, like Zacchaeus hidden in the fig tree.
  
The work of the poet, like that of the activist,
 is to be “aware beyond the obvious” then write it down, 
 pursue it with “dogged determination” to its righteous end.**
  
The work of the poet is to pay attention – close attention to detail
 like Wallace Stevens and his blackbird. And to seek out
 the intricacies of life, like those embroidered flowers 
 hand-stitched onto bridal gowns.
  
The work of the poet is to flirt with mystery
 to dance with the foreign stranger
 who has stopped to ask directions.
  
The work of the poet is suffused with passion:
 flooded with questions, she thirsts for answers 
 holds a reverence for truth in all its disguises.
  
 The work of the poet is to play with language, to evoke images.
 To shout or whisper – one or the other, it all depends.
 The work of the poet is to hurl herself headlong into the thick of 
    things
 plunge into the murkiest water, swim freely in the clearest streams.
  
The work of the poet is to find some hope and pass it along to those 
 with lusterless eyes. The work of the poet is to lift all that is
    precious 
 out of the trodden earth and dust it off, saying, 
 You too are holy. I will put you in this poem.
 ~ ~ ~
 © 2021 Marjorie Pagel
  
*The first line of the poem is borrowed from Diane Ackerman: “The Work of the Poet is to Name What is Holy”) https://journaltherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/The-Work-of-the-Poet-is-to-Name-What-is-Holy.pdf
  
**The Quoted phrases in the second stanza are from a published interview with Margaret Rozga: https://delphiquarterly.com/recent-issues/current-issue-7/interview-with-margaret-rozga/ 

Author’s Statement

I enjoy a challenge such as the one we were given – to choose two of our own poems plus an essay or article, then select words from all three and work them into an original poem. When initially I failed to become inspired, I decided to take a writing prompt I was working on and incorporate some of my chosen words into that response.

I need to give credit to three other poets: 1) Laurie Wagner who motivates writers by reading a poem and then suggesting certain lines as a starting point. 2) Diane Ackerman, whose poem was chosen for Laurie Wagner’s Zoom writing session one day in March 2021; I used the first line of her poem to write my own. Margaret Rozga, Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate 2019-2020, who was interviewed about her civil rights activism and her poetry in the referenced article from Delphi Quarterly. I chose a couple of quotes from the interview for the second stanza of my poem.

Bio:

Marjorie Pagel of Franklin, Wisconsin, is a retired English instructor from Concordia University, Mequon, Wisconsin. She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and participates in several writing groups. She has published The Romance of Anna Smith and other stories and Where I’m From: poems and stories. You can contact her at Marjorie.Pagel@gmail.com or on Facebook. She writes a blog, “Meet Me at the Corner” (https://meetmeatthecorner.blog/)

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review