the poet has come back

So, um, HELLO. I'm in Greece! I haven't used my journal in 500 years! BUT GUESS WHAT: it's April 1, 2017, which means it's the TENTH ANNIVERSARY of the very first time I posted a poem a day in April, for National Poetry Month. I had no idea what would happen when I started this in 2007, but it's become one of my favorite traditions. A decade later, I have yet to run out of poetry. I've also read a lot more poetry than I ever anticipated (even as someone who has always loved poetry); and through ten years in which I've faced numerous major life events and changes, the poetry has remained a constant. I'm very grateful for it, and I'm very happy to still be here, doing this.

This year I have the added excitement of being on a Mediterranean cruise, which means the poetry will probably be egregiously thematic. Today is the first day of the cruise, and we're docked in Athens. Tomorrow we go to visit the Oracle at Delphi, and then we sail on to several ports in Greece, then up the Adriatic to Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia, and then to Venice. I'm pretty excited, and also excessively prepared for the first half of the month, since I didn't bring any poetry books with me; on the other hand, we'll see what happens.

I want to start, however, with Margaret Atwood:

The poet has come back to being a poet
after decades of being virtuous instead.

Can't you be both?
No. Not in public.

You could, once,
back when God was still thundering vengeance

and liked the scent of blood,
and hadn't got around to slippery forgiveness.

Then you could scatter incense and praise,
and wear your snake necklace,

and hymn the crushed skulls of your enemies
to a pious chorus.

No deferential smiling, no baking of cookies,
no I'm a nice person really.

Welcome back, my dear.
Time to resume our vigil,

time to unlock the cellar door,
time to remind ourselves

that the god of poets has two hands:
the dextrous, the sinister.

—Margaret Atwood (b. 1939), "The poet has come back" from The Door, 2007.