You 'Discover' a poem

“Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?” – John Leonard

Born in Great Britain on July 7, 1965, Leonard was raised and educated there but now makes his home in Australia where he served as poetry editor of the magazine Overland.   I remember first coming across Leonard quoted on a plaque made from a piece of granite.  On that rugged piece of rock, it simply said:   “It takes a long time to grow an old friend.”

Among Leonard’s recent collections are 2016’s Think of the world: Collected poems 1986-2016 and Missa Mundi, alternative texts for the four pieces of the Catholic liturgy most commonly set to music.   More about Leonard and his many writings can be found at his website: http://www.jleonard.net/

For Saturday’s Poem, from his 2010 book Braided Lands, here is:

You Don't Write a Poem

You don't write a poem-

What you do is discover

That there is a world,

Quite similar to our own,

Except that it contains

This one extra poem.

And what you recognise

Is that this one poem

Makes all the difference

© John Leonard

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