HOW TO EAT A POEM
Don't be polite.
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that
may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.
You do not need a knife or fork or spoon
or plate or napkin or tablecloth.
For there is no core
or stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
or skin
to throw away.
— Eve Merriam
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
— Mark Strand from "Eating Poetry" in Reasons for Moving
The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten,
it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.
~ Theodore Roethke
Poet's Corner
