The handsome young man handed me a bottle of Ting, Jamaica’s popular grapefruit soda, and said with a mischievous smile, “This is where Stella got her groove back.”

Oh really. Well, my groove is fine, thank you.

I had flown to the island on assignment. My task: Write a travel story about the Calabash Literary Festival for my editor. I also hoped to write a poem for myself, since I’d be in the land of sun and sand, where the ocean looks like a thousand green gems, each a slightly different hue.

But poetry can be elusive. It tends to hide if you seek it.

“Yeah, man” quickly became “no, ma'am,” despite the striking things I saw – the rugged coast, the threadbare chickens walking along the edge of the highway, the stubborn little donkey standing in the middle of the road, as if it owned the whole country.

The problem, I realized, was that I was overloaded with imagery, and images without context or meaning are worthless. A poem results from a sudden “awakening of attention,” as W.S. Merwin says in the latest issue of Poets & Writers.

Part of what I needed had come, oddly enough, my first day there, when Jake’s (the resort that hosts Calabash) hired a boat to take some of the featured writers down the coast, to the Pelican Bar, and then up the Black River. I was invited to go along.

The boat could definitely rock and roll – especially if two people tried to board at once. There were no cushions and no cover. Amina Baraka, wife of the poet Amiri, wasn’t sure she wanted to get in.

But she did, and she and Amiri sat toward the back of the boat. I shared the last bench with novelist Colin Channer, one of the festival’s founders.

Colin is a warm, welcoming man, with a big voice and an easy laugh. As we rode along past resorts and then open stretches of beach, he chuckled each time Amina squealed about a large wave. The grin on his face never seemed to fade as he looked at the people in the boat – including novelist Russell Banks and poet Roger Bonair-Agard – or toward the island and then the open water.

His look was so serene and appreciative, I finally had to ask: “What are you thinking about?”

He looked out toward the waves and said, “I’m thinking about the 50 things I need to do when I get back.” The festival would begin that night.

And then he added, in a softer voice, “I’m also thinking about the rhythm of those hills,” he said, pointing. “They’re so musical.”

Wow.

A few minutes later he pointed toward the hills again, saying they looked “like a trumpet solo.”

I tried looking at things as intently as Colin did. The Pelican Bar, our first destination, was a hut on stilts, on a sandbar half a mile offshore. The “stairs” were made of tree limbs. And the “bar” consisted of a cooler full of bottled drinks, including Ting, my new favorite.

I tried to take in every detail, admiring the crafts that a man named Joseph had for sale on the floor of the hut. He’d painted shells and carved bird houses from gourds. But I didn’t notice as much as Colin did.

When we got back into the boat, he said, “Look in your pocket.”

In my pocket? Why?

I searched my jacket twice before I found the piece of coral Joseph had slipped in as a gift.

As we headed to the Black River, several miles away, I asked Colin if he was surprised that the festival, now in its fifth year, had become so successful, drawing people from all around Jamaica and the world.

No, he said, people “needed it, they just didn’t know they did.”

Talk about foresight – or faith. Whatever you call it, the man clearly has vision, which is very different from sight. One is the ability to notice details, the other to understand them. When they come together, a poem (or a novel) sings.

What I didn’t realize until later, though, is that Colin was nearly blind until a few years ago. He credits skilled surgeons for restoring what little sight he has.

That unlikely juxtaposition was exactly the kind of inspiration I’d been hoping to find.

It’s June. Have you recovered from National Poetry Month yet?

I ask that partially in jest, considering that many poets give more readings and workshops in April than in the other 11 months combined. But if you were pooped by April 30, think how the staff of the Academy of American Poets must have felt.

After all, they’re the ones who make National Poetry Month (NPM) happen. That’s a bit like throwing a Mardi Gras party for the entire nation. 

What few people realize, though, is that the academy has only nine full-time employees and an annual budget of just $1.7 million, with $400,000 earmarked for prizes.

So how does the academy manage to pull off the impossible? And where did the idea for NPM come from?

The latter is easier to answer. In 1995, Maggie Richards, a marketer at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, came up with the NPM concept, and an editor at FSG urged the academy to adopt the project. They did, and after brainstorming with other literary organizations, educators, booksellers, and publishers, the academy launched Poetry Month in 1996 with readings in New York and nine other cities.

Word spread quickly, and the following spring more literary groups joined in. The media also increased their coverage.

“National Poetry Month has been so wildly successful because of the vast number of individuals and organizations that instantly took the program to heart and created local celebrations everywhere in America,” says Tree Swenson, executive director of the academy.

That willingness to share the glory says a lot about the academy, but convincing fellow writers is easier than winning over the public. The latter could only be achieved with creativity and a lot of legwork. 

The launch of the academy’s website (Poets.org) in 1997 generated a huge amount of interest. But no one could have predicted that by its 10th anniversary, NPM would have changed the cultural landscape. Poetry is now celebrated – for one month anyway – in schools, bookstores, libraries, and cultural centers. Poetry appears on posters and billboards, on radio, TV, and in thousands of newspapers. It seems to be everywhere.

Again, what’s the academy’s secret?

According to Charles Flowers, associate director, the staff helps people reconnect – or connect for the first time – with the art form in a positive way. “We help people tap into something that is already there,” he says. “People are already excited about poetry, and we are the catalyst; it’s there just waiting to happen.”

Poetry may indeed be “waiting to happen,” but the academy helps that along in some imaginative ways.

One year it gave out poetry books on April 15 at the post office at 8th Avenue and 33rd Street In New York. Another year it asked people to vote on which poet should be the subject of a US stamp (Langston Hughes won). Every event seems to send the message that poetry is – or could be – a natural part of daily life.

The academy’s vast and newly designed website, which drew 570,000 unique visitors this past April, conveys that same idea. And the site – with the most varied and extensive poetry coverage online – will keep many of those people coming back all year for the audio, the bios of poets, the prose features, resources for teachers, and more.

But it isn’t just the content that draws people; it’s the attitude as well. The site, like NPM events, has a “you are welcome here” feel. The academy seems to be sharing what it loves, not handing down decrees from on high.

That, in this poet-journalist’s opinion, is what really attracts crowds.

Attitude alone, however, isn’t enough to make NPM a reality. There’s also a tremendous amount of work involved. Just ask Mr. Flowers, who calls April his “grumpy time” and asks co-workers to bear with him.

As coordinator of the NPM campaign, Flowers must answer phone and e-mail requests from people around the country, deal with the media, host readings and introduce poets at events, oversee NPM updates to the academy’s website, and send out thousands of posters.

Does he get any sleep in April?

Flowers laughs, acknowledging that the phones never stop ringing. He also admits that the close-knit staff sometimes feel like “Little League players swinging at everything thrown our way.”

That’s not the impression observers have. Flowers always sounds upbeat and energetic on the phone. But if you comment on his demeanor, he quickly notes that he depends heavily on all of the academy’s personnel, more than half of whom have master of fine arts degrees.

Ms. Swenson, Flowers’s boss, also praises the young staff, which includes former editors and journalists, as well as Web experts. “They are all devoted to poetry,” she says. It’s a highly interactive atmosphere, she adds, “and fired by the art of words raised to their high-test power.”

In the end, there’s still some mystery as to how that “fire” continues to inspire excitement. But the heat can be felt all across the country, even in newsrooms, where reporters who once thought of poetry as “marginalized” or a “dead art form” now have a reason to cover the subject. For those of us who love poetry, that’s a step in the right direction.

And it’s all thanks to one hardworking staff, which is already planning for next April.

One of the beauties of the digital world is that there are no space limitations. Print publications give writers just so much room for each story, leaving some tales only half-told. Such was the case when I
profiled Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine, a few weeks ago.

But in this forum, there are no word counts, which means I can present a fuller portrait of the man, and include everything I think readers need to know....

Ask 10 poets to describe Christian Wiman and you're likely to get seven generic answers and three blank stares. Those in the first group will say that Mr. Wiman is the newest editor of Poetry magazine, appointed in spring 2003. They may also know that the 30 something poet/essayist has impressive credentials, including the Nicholas Roerich Prize for his first book, "The Long Home," a Stegner Fellowship, and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship; teaching positions at Lynchburg College, Stanford and Northwestern Universities. Longtime readers of Poetry will also add that Wiman published a stream of reviews and critical essays in the magazine prior to being named editor.

But ask for more specific information – about Wiman's poems or background, or why he's uniquely qualified for the job – and almost every face in the room will go blank.

The reaction is understandable, since Poetry's reputation casts such a long shadow. For most of its 92 years, the journal has been the standard-bearer of the literary world, with a mission "to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre, or approach." Few poets develop major reputations without appearing in Poetry's pages.

Then, of course, there was that $100 million gift from heiress Ruth Lilly, which catapulted the small monthly into the national spotlight. Since then, writers across the country have expected the magazine to significantly broaden and alter the course of American poetry. Reporters have looked for drama at every
turn, expecting Poetry to produce a superhero, a combination of Indiana Jones and a literary savior.

Given the hype and the high expectations, it's no surprise that people often fail to see Wiman for who he really is. But as with most stories, the truth is far more interesting than the illusions – and more relevant to those who care about poetry.

So what is Christian Wiman really like?

One important thing to know: he's full of contradictions – an intellectual who mowed lawns and worked in oil fields as a teen; a Southern gentleman who grew up in a family plagued by tumult; a world traveler who lived in England, Mexico, Guatemala, and the Czech Republic yet never quite escaped his native Texas.

All of these juxtapositions have given him an unusually broad perspective and the ability to speak to – and understand – a wide range of people. Whereas some editors focus on pleasing a narrow readership, Wiman wants to "begin breaking down the self-enclosure of the poetry world." He'd like Poetry to become a common meeting ground. "The literary culture is so disparate," he says. "There hasn't been a place that everybody turns to."

One way he's trying to draw a more diverse audience is by publishing lively, provocative prose pieces that address the "debate and discussion that goes on." In the April issue, for example, that meant asking questions poets rarely voice in public, such as: "Is Garrison Keillor good for poetry?"

Some would argue that it's never wise to quibble with a man who is giving the genre wide, free exposure.

But Wiman doesn't take the safe route, ever. In his editorial about National Poetry Month – National Defibrilation Month, as he calls it – he raises one unspeakable question after another: Should poetry survive? What is the point of persisting with this art at this time?"

The purpose here is not just to get everybody's attention. As he writes earlier in the piece, "Poetry as we know it in twentieth-first century America can die, will die without a committed audience that is larger than its practitioners, and those of us for whom the art is important must ask ourselves hard practical questions about its survival."

Future issues of Poetry will continue to push the envelope, and will feature commentary from those outside the literary world, including journalists. Yet while prose may draw an audience to the magazine, the poetry is far more important, Wiman says. That's one reason recent editions have featured tighter, more finely crafted work. Often the poems begin with strong, evocative lines that pull a reader in immediately.

Wiman's taste in poetry hints at quite a lot. But to understand him as an editor, one must know something about him as a man and a writer, and that means getting well beyond the surface facts.

Wiman, on Wiman
Ask Christian Wiman to describe himself in three words, and he has no trouble choosing the first two. Disciplined and passionate, he says, with calm, quick assurance. But the third adjective evades him. He thinks for a minute before settling on "whimsical" – a choice that would draw hilarity from his friends, he admits. They tend to see his more serious side, as does his small staff.

His first choice is appropriate, given that a strong sense of discipline seems to shape even the smallest details of his life. He allows himself just one strong cup of coffee a day, for example, and runs five miles a night on a treadmill. He usually brings his lunch to work, rather than going to the cafe one floor above Poetry's roomier yet modest new home. Even his office, which lacks shades or blinds on the window, seems to suggest that work, not comfort, is the priority here.

Yet while this picture may seem the opposite of what many Americans, especially young people, want for themselves, the discipline Wiman found in poetry – through its form and structure – has helped him survive and somewhat transcend a childhood that he describes as "tumultous, with lots of disruptions," in Snyder, west Texas.

Wiman speaks gently, almost gingerly, about violence on both sides of his family, and about the fact that his parents, who married at 17, split up when he was about 14. Eventually, the family lost its home, and his father, a country doctor, went bankrupt. By 15, Wiman was making all of his own decisions.

Two crucial choices, following more personal losses, helped create his future path: live an ordered life, unlike many of those around him, and start saving for college.

In his junior year at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, Wiman began to write seriously. At the time he was an economics major.

"One of the things I first found in poetry, one of the things I first responded to, was that it gave a form to all of that formless experience, what seemed to me very chaotic, and suddenly I had a place to put it."

Poetry also provided a way to examine how he was shaped and haunted by Texas, a place he would spend years trying to distance himself from. Whether he went to Mexico or San Francisco, Prague or London, Texas was there, at least in his poems.

"I wanted what I made to contain all those people I'd lost, contain all those people that I'd known, all those voices," he says.

That impulse is one that many American writers can identify with. "The idea of placelessness seems to be a contemporary phenonenon," says Wiman, with just a touch of a Southern drawl." A lot of people don't have a place they think of as rooting them somewhere, so art becomes a means of recovering that or creating that or some way making that connection."

Passion is the second adjective Wiman uses to describe himself, and good poems top the list of things he's passionate about. Yet while he appreciates various forms and styles – as does Poetry – fine craftsmanship is a must. After all, he says, form is what gives poetry its power and distinguishes art from mere personal expression. "The most common mistake [poets make] is the assumption that craft doesn't matter, that technique doesn't matter as much as what you're saying."

Wiman's own writing is a good example of the necessary marriage between the two. Passion is always present in his work, yet it's tempered by the poem's structure. The result, as in "Postolka," is an emotional truth that resonates strongly because it is understated.

Postolka (Prague)

When I was learning words
and you were in the bath
there was a flurry of small birds
and in the aftermath

of all that panicked flight-
as if the red dusk willed
a concentration of its light-
a falcon on the sill.

It scanned the orchard's bowers,
then pane by pane it eyed
the stories facing ours
but never looked inside.

I called you in to see.
And when you steamed the room
and naked next to me
stood dripping, as a bloom

of blood formed in your cheek
and slowly seemed to melt,
I could almost speak
the love I almost felt.

Wish for something, you said.
A shiver pricked your spine.
The falcon turned its head
and locked its eyes on mine.

For a long moment then
I wished and wished and wished
the moment would not end.
And just like that it vanished.

Wiman's poems always begin as sound, he says. "A rhythm or a piece of language strikes me; it's not a visual thing."

One poem may take years to complete, as he tries to gather a huge mass of fragments into a well-polished whole. "Poems can bear very few weak spots," he says. "A poem may bear one weak line, but it won't bear two."

One exception to this rule, he adds, is Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," which begins, "My heart aches...."

Given his aesthetic choices, it's perhaps no surprise that Wiman feels a kinship with the Romantics.
"Those are the poets I respond to most deeply," he says.

Oddly enough, many readers who do not like contemporary poetry feel the same way. They balk at verse that lacks defined borders and music.

Wiman, who receives 90,000 poems annually, balks at other trends, too. He doesn't like work that focuses solely on the self, or that tries so hard to make a point that it loses all humanity. Poetry should speak to the age, he believes.

He also wishes that it would speak to him more frequently. In the year since his appointment, he has written several prose pieces, yet almost no poetry. The magazine has taken most of his creative energy.

"Silence terrifies me," he says, voicing the fear many writers share. "What if I don't get another poem? If you're using poetry to organize your life and then poetry is denied you, you've got a problem."

Fortunately, Wiman's words can return as mysteriously, and quickly, as they seem to disappear. His second book, "Hard Night," which is forthcoming next year, was written in bursts. "In three weeks I wrote 33 pages," he says.

Try that again

As for Wiman's third adjective, "whimsical," his friends are right to laugh at that choice. Whimsical implies a touch of silliness, which does not fit him at all. Yes, he does have a small plastic basketball on his desk – which he squeezes while reading manuscripts – but this was a free gift from the gym where he works out. Other items in his office are far more telling, such as the tennis racket that rests on top of one bookshelf.

During his college days in Virginia, Wiman played on the school's tennis team. In his senior year, when he was team captain, they won the national championship.

One could assume that the game appealed because of the constant back-and-forth exchange, the juxtaposition of strict rules and contained power, strategy on the fly. But assuming anything about Wiman is foolish. Just when you think you've figured him out, he surprises yet again.

As editor of Poetry, for example, he boasts of raising payments for contributors, yet in the early days of his tenure he hesitated before buying a box of paper clips for the office. Another surprise: When Joseph Parisi, his predecessor, offered him the job at Poetry, the two were having dinner at the Berghoff, a popular German restaurant in Chicago. Wiman wasn't expecting a job offer and was stunned by the question. Still, he says, "I played it cool."

"Quick-witted" is a better description of Wiman than "whimsical." "Astute" may be more accurate.

When a reporter arrives at his office, for example, he immediately offers her a cup of tea, a common, courteous gesture. But he also notices which sweetener she chooses and jokes, "That stuff will kill
you."

Thirty minutes later, during an interview, he sees that the tea has gotten cold and offers to make another cup.

More mere civility? Perhaps, but the impression one gets is that Wiman notices every detail, large or small.

That's a quality many of Poetry's readers have already come to appreciate, and one they will continue to see in future issues. They will also notice Wiman's influence – with his characteristic mix of passion and restraint, logic and surprise – in the new poetry programs that he and the staff of the Poetry Foundation, which publishes the magazine, are currently developing.

What observers won't find in this articulate man, however, is a cartoon superhero who can change the course of American letters overnight. Wiman's approach to his task is more like that of a Texas rancher, who understands that in an arid land, diverting even a small stream can be the difference between parched ground and green pasture.

Many poets lead a dual life. For some that means teaching during the day, or working in the business world. Others are chefs or carpenters. One poet I know makes his living as a psychic.

I’ve often wondered how others balance their halves. Does one exert more pull in the evening, the other in the daylight hours? What happens when the two sides represent vastly different values? Can you make a seamless whole out of what appears to be disparate parts?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since January, when my two roles – journalist and poet – collided once again. I was writing a "where are they now" piece about Poetry Magazine; my assignment was to look at how the venerable publication has fared since announcing the $100 million gift from Ruth Lilly in November 2002.

When I was interviewing people for the piece, I followed my standard MO. I told anyone I hadn't spoken with before that I'm a poet. In one case I even mentioned that I have my MFA and I’ve taught workshops in many different venues. Normally, this information helps put people at ease.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case this time. One person seemed unimpressed, and another – whose comments weren't included for space reasons – told me I made her nervous, because she's seen reporters mangle quotes in the past. I maintained my professional cool the whole time, but inwardly I was shouting, "I'm one of you. Don’t you get that?"

The experience still leaves me feeling frustrated, because poetry and journalism are two sides of one coin. They are first cousins, as I see it, because they both are in the business of truth-telling. The difference is that one group relies on literal facts and the other on emotional truths.

A journalist at a major daily, for example, might write about a teenager who had an argument with his mother, stole a car, and then ran away from home. The story would include a description of the vehicle, how and where the teen got arrested, and what his mother said at his arraignment.

But the reporter can’t tell you why the teen was suddenly overwhelmed by personal demons, what he was thinking when he hot-wired the car, or how that drive sent him down a new path that, years later, will help him find his life calling.

Poetry can tell you those things. It can make you feel the angry tremble in his hands as he floored the accelerator. It can help you understand how he felt when his life, and his wheels, went careening out of control.

The problem, as most people would be quick to note, is that both versions of the boy’s story are limited. The first relies on surface information, details that can be verified by reputable sources. The second is based on information that comes from the poet’s mind and imagination, not the subject’s.

Neither approach is perfect, and neither has a monopoly on truth. Like water cupped in an upturned fist, some of it always runs out.

Yet instead of realizing that there is value to both views – call them sky-level and ground-level perspectives – people tend to choose one over the other. They read poetry almost exclusively and skip the news, as some of my literary friends do. Or they follow the news religiously and believe that poetry is like spring rain, something that should only appear in April (National Poetry month). One of my colleagues, who loves history and do-it-yourself science experiments, even told me once that "poetry and poets are irrational."

Both sides make me a bit sad, and weary. Human beings are more than just intellect or emotion. They can operate on many different levels at once.

But for some reason Americans don’t like to believe that. We tend to mistrust people who don't fit conventional labels. Looking for a new possibility takes too much time and effort.

What if I’m right, though, and the two genres really are close cousins? What are we missing when reporters don’t look for the emotional component of a story and poets don’t look for clarity and a "point?"

Part of me dreads the next time I start interviewing poets for a story and people who don’t know my background speak to me v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, as if I am deeply deficient. Some may even repeat themselves, as if that will somehow help me understand.

Or maybe that won’t be the case at all. Perhaps by then I will feel more confident wearing two hats at once. Perhaps I will be such an integrated writer that others will naturally feel at ease in my presence.

Just think of the stories and the poems I’ll write then.