Some of us have more active fantasy lives than others, but all of us have them. Here Karin Gottshall, who lives in Vermont, shares a variety of loneliness that some of our readers may have experienced. [Introduction by Ted Koosner.]

More Lies

Sometimes I say I’m going to meet my sister at the café—

even though I have no sister—just because it’s such

a beautiful thing to say. I’ve always thought so, ever since

I read a novel in which two sisters were constantly meeting

in cafés. Today, for example, I walked alone

on the wet sidewalk, wearing my rain boots, expecting

someone might ask where I was headed. I bought

a steno pad and a watch battery, the store windows

fogged up. Rain in April is a kind of promise, and it costs

nothing. I carried a bag of books to the café and ordered

tea. I like a place that’s lit by lamps. I like a place

where you can hear people talk about small things,

like the difference between azure and cerulean,

and the price of tulips. It’s going down. I watched

someone who could be my sister walk in, shaking the rain

from her hair. I thought, even now florists are filling

their coolers with tulips, five dollars a bundle. All over

the city there are sisters. Any one of them could be mine.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Karin Gottshall, whose most recent book of poetry is Crocus, Fordham University Press, 2007. Poem reprinted from the New Ohio Review, No. 8, Fall 2010, by permission of Karin Gottshall and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

I like poetry—or at least I do when I take the time to read it. Every year I vow I’ll read more, and I make one or two purchases in hopeful expectation of doing so. I keep a small stack of poetry books by my bed, thinking that a poem or two taken at bedtime will be just the ticket. (Usually, however, I doze off while reading the latest novel I’ve checked out from the library and never get to that poem reading. Maybe I should do it first thing in the morning?)

I’ve decided that’s OK, though. I’m not going to make reading poetry into another “should.” And you *shouldn’t* either! Even David Orr, New York Times poetry critic and author of the book Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry (a book I want to read) told NPR’s Linda Wertheimer, “I don’t know that people ought to bother. I think that poetry is one of those choices you make in life that’s…it’s not really susceptible to reasoning or arguments…. I think a better way to approach the question ‘why bother’ [to read poetry] is not to answer it—but rather just to say that if you do bother, it can be worthwhile.” 

So I’m not going to try to convince you to read poetry—but in honor of National Poetry Month, I am going to share with you a few ways you can make poetry part of your life, if you want to.

I continue to love American Life in Poetry with their weekly emailed poems (I post one here every other week), but you can also get a poem-a-day from Poets.org. 

To capture the poems (or parts of poems) you like, start a “commonplace book.” You can also add quotes and sayings that are meaningful to you, and end up with a beautiful and inspiring volume.

Start an online poem notebook here. 

Listen to poems read by their authors here or look for Poetry Speaks, a combination book and cd package, at your library or at a bookstore (or online). I found it thrilling to hear the voices of T.S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay and e.e. cummings reading their own work. 

Do you have a favorite poet or favorite poem? One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost’s A Line-Storm Song. I just love the lines: “Come over the hills and far with me,/ And be my love in the rain.” 

“The true test of poetry is sincerity and vitality. It is not rhyme, or metre, or subject. It is nothing in the world

but the soul of man as it really is.”

—Amy Lowell

When I was in elementary school, my school produced the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. (As a chorus member. I did understudy Lucy, but my friend Roxanne refused to get sick or break a leg so that I could assume the role.) One of my favorite songs from this play is, fittingly enough, “Happiness Is.” The lyrics, written by Clark Gesner, sweetly show how children know that it’s the simple, everyday things that bring happiness, things like: learning to whistle, two kinds of ice cream, five different crayons (obviously written in a simpler time!) or sharing a secret. (If you know the song, it’s playing in your head right now isn’t it? For those of you who don’t know it, click here.) 

There are plenty of things to be happy about in my life, and sure enough, plenty of them are simple. I made a list of some happy things—there’s some overlap with my list of 100 things I love, but it was a good reminder to me how simple happiness can be.

Here’s a partial listing of some of my happy things:

The smell of a horse.

The taste of chocolate.

Taking a nap, wrapped in a cozy blanket.

Slipping into a bed made with fresh sheets.

Sitting outside listening to birds sing.

Getting lost in a really good book.

Starting a new journal.

Waking up in the morning with a free day in front of me. (Yes, it happens, but only if I schedule it.)

Singing along with the car radio while driving with the sunroof open.

Go ahead and make your own list. Then come back here and share some of your happy things—I want to know what makes you happy!

“The greatest mistake you can make in life

is to be continually fearing you will make one.”

―Elbert Hubbard

I’ll just tell you up front: I hate making mistakes. Actually, more accurately, I hate admitting I made a mistake.  I know this is holding me back in life—it makes me less likely to step outside my comfort zone, take risks and be honest with myself and others.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never

tried anything new.”

―Albert Einstein

For me, there are a couple of levels of mistakes: The first I’m only a little bothered by: when I’m learning something new and therefore can’t be expected to “know it all” (yet), or when it involves something that doesn’t matter much to me. Mistakes like this seem “acceptable,” even to my perfectionistic little soul.

“Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom.”

—William Jordan

The second, more difficult level, involves mistakes made when I “should” know better or when something matters very much to me. In the first instance, when I make a mistake it only reinforces the fact that I am, indeed, human. (I don’t know why this is so difficult for me to feel comfortable with!) In the second instance, when it’s something that matters to me, the stakes seem higher. For example, I find it excruciatingly painful to admit I’ve made mistakes parenting, as I most certainly have. (And I especially have a hard time admitting this to my husband—why is that?!)

I seem to want to keep up a façade of being, if not perfect, at least nearly so. By this time in my life, I feel I should be competent, intelligent and accomplished.  The mistakes I make just show me how very far I have to go to be the person I want to be.

“Good judgment comes from experience,

and experience comes from bad judgment.”

—Rita Mae Brown

In theory, I know the importance of mistakes. I know that without risking mistakes, I will learn nothing, and completely cease any kind of creative or spiritual growth. Denying mistakes makes them impossible to correct, hiding mistakes simply causes them to grow.  It’s just the practice of accepting and admitting mistakes is so hard!

Maybe my resistance to admitting mistakes has something to do with my ongoing battle with perfectionism, with always wanting to do things “right,” with the sometimes impossible standards I aspire to. I simply can’t be a brilliant writer, loving wife and mother, caring friend, perfect homemaker…you get the idea. I’m afraid admitting a mistake in any of these areas only draws attention to the ways in which I believe I fall short.

I wish I had some profound lesson to share with you about how admitting my mistakes has made my life richer, but I’m just starting to see the extent of my resistance to this topic.  I can only tell you that this is now something I hope to stay aware of and work on.

How do you cope with mistakes? What have you learned from them?

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include

the freedom to make mistakes.”

—Mahatma Gandhi