I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about

Steven Wright, master of dry humor and hidden wisdom, once said: “I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.” At first his words sound absurd, the playful jest of a comedian. Yet within them lies a truth that the ancients themselves would have cherished: that the dictionary, though plain and unadorned, contains the seeds of every poem, every story, every truth that language can hold. For what is poetry but the artful arrangement of words? And where do all words dwell but in the pages of the dictionary? Thus, in its silence and order, it is indeed a poem about everything.

The origin of this insight comes not only from Wright’s comedic genius, but from the eternal relationship between words and meaning. A dictionary appears dry, a list of definitions without rhythm or beauty. Yet it contains the raw clay from which poets fashion their art. Each word is a world: love, death, joy, sorrow, war, peace. To string them together is to weave the tapestry of human experience. Wright, with a wink, reminds us that the dictionary is not a dull record but a hidden treasury, a collection of every fragment that makes the human soul intelligible.

The ancients knew this mystery well. When the Hebrews named things in Genesis, the act of naming was itself sacred, a way of ordering creation. In China, Confucius spoke of the “rectification of names,” saying that if words were not right, society itself would collapse. To them, as to Wright, the dictionary would not be a mere tool—it would be a cosmos of meaning, every word a star, and all together forming the constellations of thought. Seen this way, the dictionary is not lifeless; it is alive with potential, waiting for the poet’s breath to awaken it.

Consider also the story of James Murray, the great lexicographer of the Oxford English Dictionary. He and his team spent decades gathering words from every corner of the English-speaking world, a labor of such vast scope that some called it impossible. Yet the work was completed, and in its pages lay not only definitions but the history of culture itself. Wars, inventions, loves, and losses—all left their trace in words. The dictionary became, in truth, a poem about everything, recording the journey of humanity across time.

Wright’s words also hold a deeper meaning about perspective. Many pass through life and see only the surface of things: a dictionary as dull, a routine as meaningless, a day as ordinary. But the poet—or the one who lives with poetic eyes—sees the hidden wonder. A list of words becomes a poem, a simple act becomes sacred, the ordinary reveals the extraordinary. It is not the dictionary that is transformed, but the reader. To see poetry everywhere is to live awake, with eyes attuned to beauty.

The lesson for us is profound: poetry is not confined to books of verse or songs of rhyme. It is present in the raw material of life—in words, in moments, in encounters. We must learn to bring the heart of a poet to whatever we behold, for then even the humblest of things will shine with meaning. Poetry is everywhere, if we learn how to see.

Practical action flows from this. When you read, do not skim as though words are dead, but pause to feel their weight. Choose a single word from the dictionary, and meditate on its history, its echoes, its power to wound or to heal. Practice seeing poetry in daily life: in the faces of strangers, in the silence between tasks, in the dictionary of your own heart. Write a single line each day, not to be great, but to train yourself to see the world as living verse.

So let us take Steven Wright’s jest as a revelation: “The dictionary is a poem about everything.” For in the end, life itself is a dictionary—an endless collection of names, meanings, and mysteries. It is up to us to arrange them into poetry, to give them rhythm and soul, to make of our days a verse in the eternal poem of humanity.