Why I Read
Statewide Poetry Contest

WHY I READ

Without the written word
we are empty. My family
raised on a diet of black
letters etched on ivory
pages. Cold winter evenings
we huddled in front
of the orange flame while
my mother read us to sleep
with the warm words of Frost.
summer morning walks
to the old library, hands
seeking coolness
from the polished,
wrought iron handrails
that led upward to paradise.
The pages spoke to us in
whispers of faraway places

William T. Stolz
Columbia, Missouri

With/In Books
Or
Why I Read

Where else can a golem tower over Brooklyn,
a jealous fairy teeter, twinkle, and dive—
Disgruntled pigs can overthrow a barn,
a curious monkey rocket to the stars.
Where else, but in a strand of letters,
treacherous trick of a tripping phrase—
carry them in your car, the crook of an arm,
sweaty pack with six busted zippers,
and still they whisper, breathe between your thumbs,
become the charging bulls of a dusty Pamplona.
Tonight, I’ve the silk of a geisha’s kimono.
In the morning, a pool of Seattle drizzle
raining in the wake of a vengeful armada.
I can set sail with Vespucci, Raleigh, or Darwin,
tend camels with Polo, paint with Pollock,
week with my dear, dead Uncle Walt Whitman.
I’ve seen his cavalry crossing a ford.
I’ve heard the nays of their tired mares.
I’ve listened to the countless cannon, rasp
of a weary surgeon’s dullest saw.
And from where else, I ask you, beg of you to see,
but in my best cane chair, twilight dying
in the palm of my left hand.

Hans P. Bremer
St. Joseph, Missouri

Incantations to books

Libro, cuando te cierro
abro la vida.
—Pablo Neruda

In the orchard you have opened on your palms,
light makes leaves
stir with breathing; your private brook of songs;
the lost letters
that only you could find; the verbal quilt,
syllabic jigsaw,
pronounced silence: chapter, verse, and word.

Circumference
of terms; stitched equatorial spines
of imagined worlds;
feathers for the mind’s flight; lens to the mind’s
eye, and taut
sail to urge on every traveler’s tale.

The orchard you have opened on your palms
taught me how
to swing: monkey bars for the brain; broad limbs
where I dreamed
many stories up, like a leopard king,
as orange moons
hung like fruit in a lush canvas of sky.

A sound place,
a prayer like blue springs where the first light gathers.
A particle
sure of itself as a sparrow. Fresh fallen snow
where animal tracks
pronounced silence: chapter, verse, and word.

Lawrence Revard
Columbia, Missouri

Why I Read

That world was fresh with talk,
and well-scrubbed landscapes
led to giants and beanstalks.
The pups of Trixie lay
still blind inside the nest of hay.
Travel was my paradise, early and late,
brisk hiking from the nursery to the backyard gate.

My elder sister held the cards, to tell
of “Dog” and “House” and “School.”
We learned those three
and other words as well.

Today small seeds we planted sixty years ago
are forests where I wander now
searching still for other paths,
for faces that I do not know
for books Faust left unread.

Today leads back without a gap
to those delightful gush-filled yesterdays,
Jane Eyre and David Copperfield
must know we love them yet.
Our hearts mature and aged
are throbbing still,
and friends beloved then are doubly-dear today.

Peter D. Hilty
Cape Girardeau, Missouri

I’d love to travel near and far
Across the world I’d roam
But bills are high, stocks are low
So here I sit at home.

But books can take me anywhere
And safely bring me back
Not only is it cheap and quick
I never have to pack.

What fun to be a secret spy
The danger and intrigue
Though fighting evil villains
Is a bit out of my league.

But read some Ian Fleming
And my courage starts to grow
Make mine shaken never stirred
And call me Double O.

If I need to wake myself
Then I know just the thing
Just try and catch a little nap
While reading Stephen King.

Race through time with H.G. Wells
Cross purple sage with Azne
Help Agatha solve a murder
While travelling on a train.

I’ll journey to the stars
Or dive beneath the sea
By simply turning pages
There’s nowhere I can’t be.

So surf the net or watch the tube
But when you want real fun
You can start a great adventure
Just begin at chapter one.

Larry Eilbott
Chesterfield, Missouri

Biblio-ascension

I read to rest my soul
on simple print:
letters soar
punctuate
life
between
spaces
clear
cloud thought
lift common vowels
closer to heaven.

Margot Suzanne Weyandt
Parkville, Missouri

two unfinished New Yorkers
six “Hank the Cowdogs”
three journals
two music books
a drawing book and a sketch book
one new release from the library
two books on tape
Daniel Pinkwater’s “Four”
two Redwall books
two Merlin books
Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy
one of the Narnia books
the fourth Harry Potter in paperback
Artemis Fowl
six newly-charged flashlights in different stages of repair
and gift of gifts,
as we pulled out, the mailman delivered a brand new, double issue New Yorker

the box gets approximately the same car space as the cooler.
it too, feeds us.
as the cooler got low, so did the box.
both needed replenishing before returning home

the box provided laughs, shared jokes,
turns at reading outloud,
inspiration for homemade stories at the fire,
company during dark travel hours,
cozy nights in the camper with lights and blankets

we love to read together and alone
our books become us.

Peggy King
Washington, Missouri

In my grandmother’s garage
we watch neighbors and strangers
sift through my grandfather’s things.
Flannel shirts and work pants
discarded by his withered body;
boxes of tools gathered at auctions
stashed forgotten and useless;
a sickroom commode,
disinfected, tagged for sale.
It is the only place to sit, sso we do.
Danny, on my lap, holds a comic book.
I read, point to the words,
nudge him to turn the page.
Halfway through he looks up,
turns his head side to side,
like a lost child, looking which way to go.
“I thought we were home
in the snuggly chair,” he says.
Funny.
So did I.

It is magic.
The story has the power
to take you to places you’ve never been,
but the spell takes you back to the snuggly chair
where you sit in your mother’s lap
and turn the pages.

Linda Gammon
Blue Springs, Missouri

I want to know why motors hum, how power flows through wires so small.
I want to learn to sail a boat, to grow a tree and build a wall.

I want to find the way to go to see a jungle dark and green.
I want to trace how rivers flow from frozen glaciers high and clean.

I want to share what others thought when shuttles flew and walls came down.
I want to feel what others felt who sailed a ship or built a town.

I want to meet with other minds who do not share my time and place.
I want to cherish noble words of those who managed life with grace.

I want to draw from knowledge stored and be equipped to help and heal.
I want to use each lesson learned to ease the pain my brothers feel.

I want to search from cell to sky to gain and test the facts I need.
I want to reach and grasp and prove. I want to grow, and so, I read.

Linda Huff
Rock Port, Missouri

Why I read

I read because I am.
I read, therefore I think.
I think, therefore I am.
What else—I implore you—could I do?

Because I think, I can forgive Descartes for belaboring the obvious.
Because I read, I can ask forgiveness for belaboring Descartes.
I read, therefore I know.

I know Descartes, and Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Johnson.
And I know Shoeless Joe and the Apostle Paul and
Yossarian, and Nick Adams, and Huck Finn, and
Yoknapatawpha County and Eriador and
Bill James formula for Win Shares.
I know the entire story of the Civil War,
Not because I remember it.

I’ve been to Paris and Knoxville, and
Several planets in several solar systems.
I can make Peach Cobbler.
Why? You ask?

What else could I do?
I don’t make this stuff up.
I like the inside of a Library
I like the attitude of a used bookstore.
And the Newstand at the Supermarket.
Brides and Software, and a Surefire way to Catch Walleye.

Because a long long time ago I learned about
The Pokey Little Puppy and
Flibberdeejibit, and
Old Mother West Wind.

I live a life of Adventure.

That’s why.

Mike Messick
Kansas City, Missouri

Why I Read

Because, on the pristine page
letters flex their humps,
lines, and circles saying
pick me. I munched them
along with Rice Crispies
learning to eat. Learning to read
was the same. My mama,
my daddy, my granny,
my aunt all fed me words.
Now the paragraphs go down
crunchy as calamari.
Yum, yum,
images fill my mind.
My stomach full of dinner,
I stuff in a few more pages.
Digestive juices mine for nutrients
while dendrites in my brain
snap, crackle, and pop
with juicy morsels. I read
satiated on other worlds,
other lives. I close the book
and answer the phone.
Gold’s Gym wants
my brain muscle
pumped and glistening
in their next ad.

Victoria Garton
Nevada, Missouri

When I Read

Words grow wings
and fly off the page
Like a flock of noisy blackbirds

Or slip like salamanders
Through the undergrowth
of my wooded imagination.

Words are windows through which I see—
The landscape of a mind
from another age, another time.

Words are cosmic worm holes
dense with energy and the dust
Of a forming universe….

And sentences too,
they snake through my dreams with promises of
fruits forbidden but oh so sweet.

And sentences too,
They wrinkle and ripple across my throughts
as many-footed centipedes of verse.

While in the paragraph,
I might find the circumference of things
Too small to see:

(an atom
Or smaller yet
a quiescent quark)

While in the paragraph, I might find
a compass which directs me like Columbus
to the shores of a new world and discovery.

Jo Van Arkel
Springfield, Missouri

Why I Read

The reasons I read
Are to understand
Why people do the things
They do to other people,
Why people don’t talk
About their mistakes,
And yet they tell you
To learn from them;
And why people
Aren’t truthful
About the things they’ve done.
I read to get
To know the author
And their style;
To actually be able
To read that person’s mind
And know what state of mind
That person is in.
I read to be the best
I can be,
To learn how
I can be a better writer;
And yet
Some of the reasons why I read
Are mysterious to me.

Chandilee Dillon
Sedalia, Missouri

It only happens once a year
and when it does I want to cheer
Shelves and shelves of brand new books
I beg my teacher for a few more looks
I look and look for the perfect one
because I know reading will be fun
I beg my mom for several dollars
and when I do she really hollers
but she knows how much I care
and truly loves the book fair.

Brett Neal
Meadville, Missouri

The Mystery of Reading

I am a princess,
Decked out in jewels.
I am a lawyer,
Laying down the rules.

I am a monster,
Along and misunderstood.
I am a maiden,
Rescued by brave Robin Hood.

I’m a sailor,
Riding with the wind.
I’m the explorer,
Searching round every bend.

I’m one with the sea,
Made of water and spray.
I’m the outcase,
Struggling to live each day.

I am the mist,
Rising from the falls.
I’m the pearly white ghost,
In lonely dark halls.

I am the spirit,
That dwells in all creatures.
The movie star,
from the double features.

I am the climber,
Reaching the peak.
I am the lowly,
The mild and meek.

I am the winner,
Of every race.
I feel the sadness,
On everyone’s face.

For I am the present,
Future and past,
The beginning and end,
Til’ pages close at last.

Katie Salkowski
Louisiana, Missouri

Why I Read

It’s nine o’clock..
Time for bed.
I get on my pajamas
and rest my head.
I toss and turn and count some sheep.
But still I find I cannot sleep.
So I reach for my book and turn on the light.
I read and read ‘til late at night.
All of a sudden my mother shouts:
“Please go to sleep, turn the lights out!”
I look at the clock, but I just can’t stop reading.
My eyes are wide open and my heart’s really beating.
Then it occurs to me why I read.
I read to bring the sleep I need.
But once I get started, the book’s like a friend,
And I can’t put it down ‘til I read “The End.”

Madeline Sharp
Webster Groves, Missouri

Why I Read
A Terzanelle

That day I knew that squiggles could speak
That day I had to know more. Paper
Becoming a living thing I must seek
Through Alcott’s scribbling and Doyle’s caper.
A mystery found its way into my life
That day I had to know more. Paper
Became clues to a world alive
What I would never know otherwise:
A mystery found its way into my life
From Shakespeare’s sonnets to St. John’s sighs.
I could not get enough, reading by flashlight
What I would never know otherwise:
Hawkings’ Universe or Poe’s Raven’s flight.
I lived among books new and rare
I could not get enough, reading by flashlight.
Late at night: Austin’s Bennet and Bronte’s Eyre.
That day I knew that squiggles could speak
I lived among books new and rare
Becoming living things I must seek.

Mikal J Shedd
Independence, Missouri

The Entrance

The Iron Gate opens

to the entrance of a meadow flowing

with nature.

Why do people kill?

Behavior is odd,

Crushing human behavior.

Did I read something?

Beauty, horror, always.

Unlock the chains

Oppression brings.

Heighten the passing

of Time.

David Whitlock
Ravenwood, Missouri

I read to aggravate my cat, oh yes
whose toenails, tummy, tail and whiskers bless
the page that I have open
data on the tides around Henlopen
or cracks in rocks at Alcatraz,
cat nap sagas, mew, oh yes.

While kitty sleeps I slip aside
frantic to find out what I’ve missed, misfiled
(or forgotten) these long decades of living,
to unearth or revisit a poet who’s cavorted where
my thoughts have squirmed and squiggled
or read of children, weavers, waxwings, widows,
Inuits and Athabaskans, Baikal fishers, hummingbirds
and nuns and Neapolitans, pollywogs, and chyme
foremasts, mainmasts, mizzens, slopes
hames and hawsers, cornmeal, cycads, oil
desert crawlers, jet exhaust, Indonesian skies,
iconoclasts, industrialists, aphids, ants and anglophiles,
tesla coils, magnetite, tuyeres, trisaccharides,
longitude and Khatmandu and Torrey Pines,
giraffes and logic, algorithms, rhymes,
coronaries, cyclotrons, Cuban rhythms, oops…

I’m not done but kitty’s waking
steps with purpose she is taking…
pounce and land…
Cat I’ll sing the saraband I read till you
eschew my book for another’s who
sits next to me.
Thankfully we are all readers,
this house is full of bookworm breeders.

Leona Mason Heitsch
Bourbon, Missouri

Why do I read?

I need.

Norma H. Bagnall
St. Joseph, Missouri