{"id":3732,"date":"2014-08-17T15:32:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-17T22:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/woocommerce-158966-458665.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=3732"},"modified":"2014-08-17T15:32:44","modified_gmt":"2014-08-17T22:32:44","slug":"what-does-a-poet-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/poetry\/what-does-a-poet-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does a Poet Do?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>for Alice Walker<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Do you know<br \/>\nthat poets<br \/>\nin our hardest moments<br \/>\nin quiet attic battlefields<br \/>\nsit with you<br \/>\nto weep with joy?<\/p>\n<p>Do you know<br \/>\nthat humans<br \/>\nat\u00a0our most afraid<br \/>\ncarrying\u00a0hearts so tender<br \/>\nact<br \/>\nbecause your actions<br \/>\ngive us<br \/>\nfaith in ourselves?<\/p>\n<p>Do you know<br \/>\nas yet another person<br \/>\nloses sight of humanity<br \/>\ntaking precious life<br \/>\nprecious limbs<br \/>\ntaking almost everything that matters<br \/>\npointlessly<br \/>\nagain and again and, fuck, not again,<br \/>\nuntil I want to rip the\u00a0<em>American\u00a0<\/em><br \/>\nand,\u00a0this month,\u00a0the <em>Earthling\u00a0<\/em>badge<br \/>\noff my burning human uniform<br \/>\nhurl them into dark forgiving space<br \/>\nsubmerge\u00a0my inner being in deep quiet waters,<br \/>\ndo you know I turn to you?<\/p>\n<p>When I lose the will to continue<\/p>\n<p>When I feel helpless and certain<\/p>\n<p>that there is nothing I can do.<\/p>\n<p>In that moment<\/p>\n<p><em>this <\/em>moment<\/p>\n<p>Alice<\/p>\n<p>I\u00a0again find you.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for showing up every day<\/p>\n<p>to answer your question<\/p>\n<p>my question now too.<\/p>\n<p>What does a poet do?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/woocommerce-158966-458665.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/2014-08-12-18.27.06.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3734\" src=\"http:\/\/woocommerce-158966-458665.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/2014-08-12-18.27.06.jpg\" alt=\"light in the window\" width=\"401\" height=\"710\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/2014-08-12-18.27.06.jpg 1520w, https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/2014-08-12-18.27.06-169x300.jpg 169w, https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/2014-08-12-18.27.06-579x1024.jpg 579w, https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/2014-08-12-18.27.06-1080x1909.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 401px) 100vw, 401px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<span class=\"et_bloom_bottom_trigger\"><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>for Alice Walker Do you know that poets in our hardest moments in quiet attic battlefields sit with you to weep with joy? Do you know that humans at\u00a0our most afraid carrying\u00a0hearts so tender act because your actions give us faith in ourselves? Do you know as yet another person loses sight of humanity taking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[783,678,718],"tags":[877,879,87,759,878,684],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.collectiveself.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}