American Poets

For as long as I can remember, I've loved song, poetry, and the folk culture of real people speaking.

Two of my favorite poets are Langston Hughes and Henry Rollins. In some ways these men could not be more different from one another, but they are folk artists, true to form, so they both touch my soul.

Below are my favorite verses from each:

There were things I wanted to tell you

I couldn't get it together

I couldn't get past your eyes

After you were gone it hurt to have kept quiet

So easy not to say what you think

To not do what you want

Hard to take rejection

Easy to hurt someone and not know it

Easy to make it hard

Henry Rollins

To wander through this living world
And leave uncut the roses
Is to remember fragrance where
The flower no scent encloses
Langston Hughes

Rollins in these verses represents the angst of my youth, when I was struggling to define and in all ways vocalize the truths about life that I was discovering through growth.

Hughes' verses are a bit different for me. As a teenager, I felt that I would burst if I could not express my emotions. Later, I began to realize that, in many of the things I am not able to say, there is a true beauty in the unsaid. There are truths that take shape in the silences, only to become just as real as if they were spoken.

This is a simple revelation, but to live consciously in appreciation of both the silence and the speech is a humbling and challenging thing.