THAT OLD MUG'S GAME IN THE BUCKET

I am not the first poet to doubt my  mission.

Rereading Frost
by Linda Pastan

Sometimes I think all the best poems
have been written already,
and no one has time to read them,
so why try to write more?

At other times though,
I remember how one flower
in a meadow already full of flowers
somehow adds to the general fireworks effect

as you get to the top of a hill
in Colorado, say, in high summer
and just look down at all that brimming color.
I also try to convince myself

that the smallest note of the smallest
instrument in the band,
the triangle for instance,
is important to the conductor

who stands there, pointing his finger
in the direction of the percussions,
demanding that one silvery ping.
And I decide not to stop trying,

at least not for a while, though in truth

I'd rather just sit here reading

how someone else has been acquainted

with the night already, and perfectly.

LOVELY  TRIBUTE TO FROST AND TO THE  POSSIBILITIES OF BEING THE SILVERY PING

Acquainted with the Night

BY ROBERT FROST

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Yes, reading other poets is a thrilling and a humbling experience.  I stayed  for many years an adoring reader of Yeats  and Keats and Byron. They had done it all. I  hesitated to share my work with anyone or to submit it for publication. 

  I remember a  teaching colleague, a poet who was an acerbic and sometimes abusive critic of student work  boasting that he often said to students --"why do you want to add another  bad poem to the world."

Pastan's poem  takes up that cruel teacher's  challenge and answers it.
  
Sometimes in my office giving academic advice, I would meet  a former  student of his who had been crushed into silence. It took much coaxing and   pushing to  set the student back on the path of exploring her own creativity.

 I wondered why he felt he should slam the doors of poetry on any one. One less rival, perhaps.  Or did  he think that  women's work was elsewhere? 

Language is one of mankind's great gifts and we  only learn how to use it and stretch it by  trying it. 
Every human being  needs to have more of a sense of our own uniqueness now scientifically  proven by our DNA. Each of us is different, and each of us may find a way to express that difference in our writing. But only if we  keep on writing.

Why not try at least to  find out what it is that you and only  you can say. AND SAY IT!