In my opinion, a poet is someone who sees things in ways that others do not. Poets do not have to be writers. To them, the scroll of a cello is the curve of a hip; the branching limbs of a tree are the synapses and neurons and fibers that provide life. I see poets as people, but poetry can be a lifestyle. Some of the greatest poets in the world hardly ever eat because they are so busy writing or seeing beauty in the world. To me a poet is not a title that you win. A prize does not define someone. Unknown poets have won no prizes yet they may write some of the best lines in the world. Even poets who do not write may have the eyes that forever search for truth and meaning in life. Poets are the people who, as Ernest Hemingway said, “write the truest sentence[s]” that they know. Or they see the truest things that they know. A poet will look at the wind and see it as the breath of a nation, or the smoke of the world’s cigarette. To a poet, the universe continues burning when everything else is lost.
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