Think of all the towns and cities we've never seen or imagined. - Naomi Shihab Nye

why, out of all the talk, do you remember that thing?

what lovely, larger life becomes ours when we listen to one another

There may be nothing more "basic" in education than gaining a sense of one's own voice. By acknowledging and shaping shared experience, we grow bigger. Poems help us see the world around us as rich material. And nothing is better than reading the work of our peers, as well as the work of older poets, to get us going in our particular terrain. A poem we love makes us want to write our own-hand to hand, map to map, contagious, delicious voices spinning us forward inside our cluttered, clattering lives.