Spending Time Doing No Harm

Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our
time, what would be wrong with a world in which every-
body were writing poems? After all, there's a significant
service to humanity in spending time doing no harm.
While you're writing your poem there's one less
scoundrel in the world. And I'd like a world, wouldn't
you, in which people actually took time to think about
what they were saying? It would be, I'm certain, a
more peaceful, more reasonable place. Idon't think
there could ever be too many poets. By writing poetry,
even those poems that fail and fail miserably, we honor
and affirm life. We say 'We loved the world but could
not stay.'

Ted Kooser
Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006