A Note from Poet Laureate: Marianne Taylor

In offering the Favorite Poem Project, my hope was to engage our community in thinking about the role poetry plays in our lives.  It stays with us because of a delightful image, like e. e. cummings’ “wee balloonman” or Frost’s “Two roads diverged in a wood,” or because of the sound of the language, as in Edward Lear’s “They danced by the light of the moon,” or Poe’s “Quoth the Raven, nevermore.”  Sometimes we love it, as do a number of our young respondents, just because it’s silly, like Silverstein’s “Sick.”  And poetry also endures because it provides a bit of wisdom to hold close to our hearts, as a number of those who submitted poems thoughtfully attest to in the following presentation. 

When we held our reading of Favorite Poems in April 2019, despite the beautiful spring day, we had a wonderful turnout attesting to the magic of these words.  I hope you enjoy the poems that were submitted and I hope you continue to find new poems to love!