We’re in the waning days of National Poetry Month, now celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. At the writers conference I help plan, we are devoting two panels to the genre.

I’ve been thinking about poetry lately. I think too much to write it well but when I’m under its spell my prose is closer to where I want it to be.

Why is this? I’m not sure. But maybe poetry is the written word distilled to its purest form.