I don't understand how people can disconnect politics from daily life, because that's how politics count. We're daily life people and that's where po… - Naomi Shihab Nye

As a direct line to human feeling, empathic experience, genuine language and detail, poetry is everything that headline news is not. It takes us inside situations, helps us imagine life from more than one perspective, honors imagery and metaphor — those great tools of thought — and deepens our confidence in a meaningful world.

Aref kept thinking that no matter what you say, there is something more inside that you can't say. You talk around it in a circle, like stirring water with a stick, when ripples swirl out from the center. (p. 259)

We feel uplifted, exhilarated. Writing regularly can help us feel that way too. It slows and eases us, calms us down. Having a focal point is generative. Consider the spaciousness of the sky over the water, which we often forget about as we scurry through our days. I love what the poet Marvin Bell has suggested about writing-Read something, then write something. Read something else, then write something else. It's all connected, it's always been connected. Let one activity inform the other. Streams of language exchanging their powers.