lo·ca·vore
noun
NORTH AMERICAN
a person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food

Seek out poets who call your place home.
They walk your streets, observe
the fantasies and foibles
of your governor,
know when your trees bloom
or when they burn.

Even if poets make myth or tell stories
that may not be entirely true,
they breathe air you breathe,
hope what they write helps you see
what they see: crumpled Bud cans
in the alley, a child too sad to sing,
nations flying flags on razor wire.

Accept that shelves holding up local poets
in your bookstore are short. Ask your
librarians to buy chapbooks.
Continue to read the poets (Rumi,
Shakespeare, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver)
whose familiar words you hear in sermons,
at weddings and funerals.

Reading local poets is like choosing
to go locavore to confirm someone
cares about you as in immediacy.
Cares to explore the lunacy, logic,
laws, leafage, laughter, lyricism,
lushness, love, and lickspittles
in your very neighborhood.

Poetry is never fake.
If you think I’m preaching
to the choir – please sing.

—

Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet who is doing a poetry marathon in January – writing 30 poems in 30 days for the Tupelo Press 30-30 Project which supports this indie press’s publication of poetry. Each new poem is posted every day in January, and this poem is one of those poems.

Poetry collections:

• How I Learned to Be White is now available from Antrim House — and on Amazon.
• Broadfork Farm collects poems about a small organic farm in Trout Lake, Washington to highlights its people and creatures.
• Ocean’s Laughter, a book of lyric and eco-poetry about Manzanita, Oregon. Look on Amazon.com or the author’s website for reviews.
• Urban Wild, a poetry chapbook now available from Finishing Line Press.

twitter: @triciaknollwind
Amazon author page