My Favorite Poem

Why I Am Not A Painter - Frank O'Hara

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

-- I love this poem because it explains everything a poet does in such a humorous manner. We take what inspires us and work it until we feel uncomfortable and keep working it until it barely resembles what inspires us. I meet people all the time who look at me funny when I describe myself as a poet. It seems dated and odd to them that I have an interest writing what few people read, but I'm no different than anyone else. I work what intrigues me, I follow what I feel I'm good at. I add words and change lines. I'm just like a painter.