The Poet Invokes

I've been like E! News Daily and the Colbert Report these last couple of days: completely ignoring the obvious tragedy.

For no other reason than they did: what does one say that isn't cheesy, diminishing, pedantic?

But I have to say this: the relevance of The Poet was highlighted this week, and--though I'm not of the same poetic field as Giovanni--I couldn't be more proud to call myself a poet.

Who put our tragedy in perspective? Who made us realize the universality of sadness and it's opposite: hope? Who articulated why everyone--throughout the globe--felt for so much those people just trying to 'Be in College'? Who invigorated the crowd? Who roused everyone in that stadium to stand on their feet in the face of adversity and challenge the false depravity of the loner--for who is the poet but a loner? And just as the introverted 'creative writer' violently bullsh1tted his way into the media spotlight and American tragedy with disparately misguided brain functions leading to the grotesquely violent horror of Monday, so the true poet rejuvenated the grieving masses with her rousing, inclusive, INSPIRING finely crafted words:

“We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile. WE are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to know when to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokier Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail, we will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech. "

And so today, I am prouder than ever to say: I am a poet.

For who better to galvanize and motivate and draw out the pride and love we humans can display than the poet?

I am a poet.

And thank you, nikki g, for reminding all the poets how relevant we are.


(And the crowd rises to its feet to chant with pride...we ARE poets)