Today I'm driving up to Augusta for a big poetry celebration at the state house. I expect the day to be overwhelming, but maybe that's just the introvert talking. Certainly there will be lots of readers, lots of dignitaries, and of course I am fretting over my outfit.

April, National Poetry Month, is always unpredictable. Sometimes I have a packed schedule; sometimes nothing. This round is suddenly shaping up to be busy, but then again the entire winter has been a frenzy, so what's new?

I don't know how other states function, but Maine makes much of poetry . . . partly because our current governor is a poet, but that's not the only reason. Poetry--at least the idea of poetry--just seems to be part of the ritual zeitgeist. It's a big state with a small population, yet poets are a significant demographic in the arts. And as became clear a couple of weeks ago, when I was speaking to teachers at the MCELA conference in Bangor, poetry also symbolizes a yearning, an emotional longing. Whether or not a person regularly writes or reads poems, the notion of poetry can be powerful.

Why, among all of the other literary genres, does poetry carry this particular aegis? We are a society of prose readers, if we read at all. Poetry is embarrassing and mysterious. It has no monetary value. Yet it continues to stand on its quiet hill.