Edward Hirsch

Forgive me for getting jacked on coffee

and obsessing over your features

year after jittery year.

I’m sorry for handing you a line

and typing you on a screen,

but don’t let me suffer in silence.

Does anyone still invoke the Muse,

string a wooden lyre for Apollo,

or try to saddle up Pegasus?

Winged horse, heavenly god or goddess,

indifferent entity, secret code, stored magic,

pleasance and half wonder, hell,

I have loved you my entire life

without even knowing what you are

or how—please help me—to find you.

friend and colleague André Bernard first convinced me to write a glossary for How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry

Everything here flows from that initial idea. S

exemplary team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. S

copyediting the manuscript

my agent, Liz Darhansoff.