April is Nation Poetry Month.  This inspired writer Christopher de Vinck to write an opinion piece for The Dallas Morning News entitled, “Unfortunately, it’s National Poetry Month.”  His title comes from his sadness over the fact that poetry needs an awareness campaign.  I, too, find this sad.  I was about to be all-in with this piece of writing until he said that “the art of poetry is in a pretentious mess.”  He says, “…poetry is sinking to the lowest common denominator, lacking sense and sound, and celebrating writers for their fame and less for their talent.”  He does not give ant specific examples of the poets he is referencing, but I have a few guesses.  de Vinck seems to be referring to  modern poetry, though he does not use the term “modern poetry.”   Instead, he obvuscates his bias by asking the question, “How many times have a read a poem in the last year and said to yourself, ‘What? I don’t get it.’  Often the reason you don’t get it is because there is nothing to get but a bunch of words piled into broken lines with disjointed images created  for a supposed effect of profundity when, in reality, the work is a pretentious mess.”  Wow!

He then goes on to give the following example:

“My 5-year old grandson loves the color and shape of dandelions.  He picks them whenever he has a chance.  When his parents took him to the New York Botanical Gardens, he was dazzled.  Same with poetry.  There are people are writing dandelion poems and poems made from fields of lavender.”

I spent some time thinking about his analogy and what he was really saying.  I came to two conclusions:

1. In his pretentious mind, I am definitely a writer of dandelion poems, if even that.
2. He really doesn’t know much about dandelions.

With that, here is today’s dandelion poem.

If I can write a poem whose words piled into broken lines bring hope to someone, or a poem that someone feels safe reading, or one in which someone finds healing, or a poem that encourages wishes and dreams, I will proudly be called a writer of dandelion poems.