When I was an English graduate student, one of my professors told me that poetry had lost its importance and that it would never have the cultural significance it had in, say, the Renaissance period. I cringed when I heard that and hoped she was wrong.

Flash forward to my poetry workshops. We poets sit in a circle and critique each other's work, but I worry we are creating poetry for poets – some have called it the MFA-ization of writing – rather than creating immediate, touching work that speaks to the common person who needs a little comfort and maybe even a little inspiration.

Enter Joan Shelley Rubin and her book Songs of Ourselves. Besides being an obvious reference to Whitman and his impact on American poetry, the title also announces the project of her book – which is to show the centrality of poetry in our lives. Rubin references and contextualizes many of the most popular poems in American history and shows how they are inextricably woven into our experience, emotions, and ideals.

Perhaps my favorite passage comes in Chapter Eight "I Am an American: Poetry and Civic Ideals." Rubin opens the chapter with an anecdote on the occasion of John F. Kennedy's inauguration. The eighty-six-year-old Robert Frost was to read his dedication when the glare of the sun prevented him from being able to see his new poem. In good ol' American can-do spirit, he scrapped the new poem and recited "The Gift Outright." Kennedy had been afraid the charming old man of letters would upstage him, and according to those present at the time, indeed Frost did.

But for a poet in need of a pep talk, the "Coda" is a must read. Rubin begins by admitting that some may see poetry in decline – it's not present in the same way it was for our parents and grandparents – in recitation exercises in school and the like. However, she then proceeds to show how poetry has mainifested itself in new and important ways in our culture. For example, Ruth Lilly endowed Poetry magazine so that it may continue to publish in perpetuity; poetry slams and other recitations have appeared on such youth culture channels as MTV and HBO; April has been named National Poetry Month; open-mic nights flourish in coffeeshops and other venues across the country; there are thousands of poetry sites on the web...her list goes on and on.

When we close this book, we are not only reminded of the centrality of poetry in twentieth century America – Rubin walks through American history and shows us how poetry has been braided through it – but we are also enthused by the exciting new things going on in the world of poetry today.

Far from a dead or even a dying art, poetry lives and enlivens us. Rubin ends with a quote from a seventy-eight-year-old in a poetry study group at a retirement center. The retiree said, "We no longer try to figure out what the poem means as much as what the poem means to us in our lives now."

May poets in poetry workshops across the country hear that comment and read this book.

October 2007