(Caroline Donnola gave me permission to post these lovely verses she wrote)

We poets
with so much to say
put ourselves on the line
again and again.
At times
we are met with silence or scorn
and break our own hearts
when we feel we’ve been dissed.

You’re writing is no longer in style,
one self-appointed critic said to me.
I wondered what that meant
and whether it should matter.

Forced to examine
my whys and wherefores—
Do I write as a release?
As an outstretched hand
to hear, feel, and see
whether others hear, feel, and see
as I do?
Or if they don’t,
do they have a response
that can create something new?
Perhaps an unscripted conversation?

This is the writer’s dilemma.
It will never be resolved.
At times it will fester.
At times we will feel ignored

Or misunderstood.
At other times
we will feel elated—
or simply human.

Dear poets everywhere:
Keep going
and do not despair!
You have won some hearts,
you have touched some lives.
And once you have done this dance,
this poetic embrace,
your arms wrapped around your readers,
you may trip and fall,
but you will get back up,
and write another poem.
And whether it goes well or badly
you will write another day.
You will doubt yourself many times,
but you will never want to stop.