Poem Elf is a blog for lovers of poetry and mischief. Or maybe just mischief. You really don’t have to like poems to enjoy the postings. In fact my fantasy is to convert the poem-indifferent to poem-curious.
I myself like poems and secret tricks. Poem Elf is the place where I indulge both. It’s my version of “The Elves and the Shoemaker” except instead of nighttime shoe-making I do secret poem-placings. Releasing poems from books and sending them out in the world becomes a conversation with mystery and beauty, as if there were a third elf in the story (and that would be me) whose job is to position the exquisite shoes just so for the cobbler and his wife to discover in the morning.
I’m not a poet and I’m not a scholar. My tastes are pretty simple. I like short-ish poems I can comprehend on the first reading but understand over a lifetime. The poems I pick are for everyone, not just for those who have a favorite poet but also for folks who last read a poem on a graduation card.
What happens to a poem after I leave it? Perhaps it lands in a trashcan, pulled down from a wall by an amused janitor; or it’s blown away from its scotch tape fastenings, picked up by a bird, and woven expertly into a nest; raked into a leaf pile and composted, helping things grow in a different way than I had intended; shoved in a back pocket, forgotten, and balled up in the wash; or, my best hope, tucked in a stranger’s wallet, pulled out from time to time, each reading bringing an expansion of sorts, each reading taken in like a drink to quench the deep thirst we all have for meaning and beauty.