I remember the day I lost poetry, and I remember the day I rediscovered it.

It was early 2002 and I still held dear the notion that one day, as I had long dreamed as a child, that I would pursue a life dedicated to the artful expression of that archaic form of literature, poetry. In the throes of my early teen years, bepimpled, bespectacled and longing for love, in a fake-leather pink notebook I whiled away the hours penning words I felt dripped in a sweet-rust concoction of honey and blood, with a dash of true, writhing torment. (Of course, it was all mind-numbing, teeth-gnashing dribble, but at the time, every word pulsed with life! Sang songs! Lived and breathed the essence of love!) In the privacy of my orange-colored bedroom, I wrote this sappy, drooling dribble, but in the classroom, I was acknowledged for my writing prowess and won a number of accolades and awards.

In college, I was recommended to take graduate-level courses in poetry, fiction and nonfiction. In particular, my teachers marveled at my ability to critique the work of my classmates. I could take a poem or short story and slowly, deliberately pull apart the layers, see the whole as a series of puzzle pieces, taking apart sentences and paragraphs, and suggest ways for putting them together again. I remember one story by a student, who at the time was also my very bipolar apartment mate (he once doused our other roommate’s Bible in cheap gin, set it aflame, and launched it into the street below from our balcony). Not surprisingly, his short story also reflected his mental chaos: a short tale of a madman whose demons drove him to kill. In my critique I laid out what I saw as an attempt to tell five very different stories, all with their own merit, but as one, a jumble of conflicts and agonizing scatteredness. My professor returned my critique to me with a simple line in red: The best of the bunch. But I was always late to class, choosing to spend time in the sun with my rock star-poet boyfriend, and so the same professor gave me a B. (I never fought the grade: You have to live life if you want to write about it, after all.)

After I had graduated from university and through my post-college jobs, my passion for poetry persisted. I started a literary journal, worked at a publishing house and then, an art magazine, took classes in art criticism and poetry throughout the city. At the Poet’s House in Soho, I applied for a master’s class with the Robert Hass. You know, Robert Hass, former U.S. poet laureate for three consecutive years (1995 to 1997), and the origin of such wondrous strands of words as those in Meditations at Lagunitas:

“There was a woman
I made love to and I remembered how, holding
her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
I felt a violent wonder at her presence
like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,
the thing her father said that hurt her, what
she dreamed.”

So exquisite is this poem that it makes my eyes water.

I hand-delivered my application along with five of my best poems, and received a letter that I had been accepted. This was no small feat: Hass himself read all of the submissions and selected those he wanted in his class. Upon receiving this news, I did two things: First, I threw my hands in the air and giggled like a child. Then, feeling giddy and dazed, I walked the streets of Brooklyn, where I lived at the time, as if in a haze and yet, everything around me seemed to glow, more beautiful and yet, distant.

Upon arriving to the class, I quietly noted that the other 10 or so students were not only significantly older, but they also seemed to be acquainted on some level with each other, and more notably, with Robert Hass himself. They called him Bob. Instead of making me feel ill at ease, this realization only served to underscore the notion that my poetry was not only fit to read, but fit to write. My heart swelled.

The master class’s format followed any that one might have ever taken: Everyone takes turns reading a single poem of their choosing, and the class responds with feedback, questions and constructive criticism. Following history, my classmates congratulated me on my criticism of their poems. There was one slightly overweight girl, eager yet affable. The poem she had chosen to read was about love and sex. But so overwrenchingly simple that in my mind I repeated what no writer ever wants to hear: This is not working. “In the dappled moonlight, he reached out and pulled me from the water/and kissed me as the blades of grass/waved in the breeze” is what echoes in my memory. The class fell quiet after she read her work. Looking around the table I could see some classmates squirming in their seats, ruffling through papers with nothing written on them, someone, I think, cleared their throat. No one would say what had to be said. So I dared to do it—elegantly, diplomatically. During the break, someone came to and said, “Thank you so much for saying what you said. It’s what we all wanted to say but couldn’t. You were brave.” I never said “this poem isn’t working” in my feedback, but it really wasn’t.

The next day, the critique of my poem was up. I had achieved such a level of confidence that when I read my poem about Tepoztlan in central Mexico, I heard muffled sighs and “oohs,” no doubt, because my fellow classmates had been so clearly haunted, captivated and enthralled by my haunting account of that beautiful town. The criticism and questions I had received were steady and valid—I could listen to my classmates and understand that the poem itself needed work, but that the imagery created by these strands of words held some strength and vision. But then Robert Hass spoke, and as he talked, the room began to spin and my cheeks flushed red. And he said those words, “This poem…it’s just not working.”

Needless to say I was devastated, and I returned home to lie on my couch, crying my eyes out and self-medicating with fistfuls of wine and ice cream. February 2002 was the last time I wrote a poem, and that class with Robert Hass put my dreams of poetry into a deep, dark grave.

Fast forward to May 29, 2008. I am leading the media outreach for the Pulitzer Prizes, and Robert Hass has won the Pulitzer for his book of poems, Time and Materials. At the awards presentation, he is sitting at a table right next to mine, and so I muster up the courage to introduce myself to him…and for a moment, see if he might remember me as the girl whose poem wasn’t working.

“Mr. Hass?” I say. “I’m Clare, the media person for the Pulitzers. I wanted to come and congratulate you on your award, but also, I took a master class in poetry with you at the Poet’s House.”

“Media relations is a good job for a poet,” he said, smiling, and I know, sincerely. “Yes, Clare, I remember you. Are you writing still?”

“Well no, not really…I think it ended with that class,” I say sheepishly, but I had to say it. I just had to know if he thought I was so horrible I should quit altogether, stick to corporate writing and call it a day. 

“Clare, you can write at any age, you can pick up again at 60. It’s never too late. Just don’t stop.”

And with that, I had my answer. It may just have been that his sharpest criticism, perhaps, might have been reserved for the one person in whom he saw some potential. That was now more than a week ago—and I haven’t written any poems since that day. But I have been living, feeling and seeing poetry in my daily life: in the softness of skin, the round, brown eyes of my niece, the smile of a stranger. Old songs are new again. And in this way, very consciously and very deliberately, I am welcoming poetry back into my life.