A Young Poet and an Old Poet

A young poet brought some poems he had written to an old poet he respected. The poems were full of airy sentiments, vagueness and philosophical generalities. The old poet read the poems with patience. Every so often he made a barely audible humming sound. Then he gave the poems back to the young poet and said, A poem must have a body as well as a soul. The young poet went home to his room where he tore up the poems. He put the pieces in a bowl. Then he wrote new poems, which, on the next day, he brought to the old poet he respected. These new poems were full of very specific details, the names of things both natural and man-made, and much matter-of-factness. The old poet read the poems with patience. Every so often he made a barely audible humming sound. Then he gave the poems back to the young poet and said, A poem must have a soul as well as a body. The young poet went home to his room where he tore up the poems. He put the pieces in the bowl that held the pieces of the old poems he had torn up. He mixed the pieces together and spilled them out onto the table. He glued the pieces together and the next day brought them to the old poet he respected. The old poet did not have to read the poems because he could see what the young poet had done. He saw that the pieces did not fit. He said, A poem must have a body and a soul with no space or seam between them. The young poet was despondent. He went home and threw the poems in the river. A year later, while walking by the shore of the ocean, the young poet saw something in the water. He bent over and picked it up. It was a shell with paper inside. On the paper was written a poem. The young poet brought it to the old poet he respected. The old poet read the poem and right away said, This is a poem. Hang it out on a pine branch to dry.

Nominated for the National Book Award and twice-nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of twenty-six books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.