I'm perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it's all

Hear now the words of Diane Wakoski, who speaks with honesty and insight: “I’m perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it’s all women. I always think it’s kind of odd, but then, more women than men, I think, read and write poetry.” These words reveal a truth about both poetry and the human spirit. Poetry has long been the vessel of feeling, the mirror of the hidden life, the thread that binds inner silence to outer speech. Wakoski sees in her audiences that women have embraced this art with greater constancy than men, and she does not despair at it—she rejoices, for it shows that poetry still lives where hearts are open to its call.

The ancients too observed that poetry is tied to emotion, reflection, and the willingness to dwell in vulnerability. Among the Greeks, the muses—guardians of poetry, song, and memory—were all women, suggesting that the soul of the art was feminine in spirit, nurturing, intuitive, and intimate. Wakoski’s insight, then, is not a complaint but an observation of continuity: that women have always stood near the fountain of poetry, whether as singers, keepers of memory, or makers of their own lines.

Consider the life of Emily Dickinson, who, from the confines of her Amherst home, produced thousands of verses that transformed American literature. She was not celebrated in her day, but her words endured, giving voice to doubt, wonder, love, and grief in ways that have never faded. Dickinson’s example embodies Wakoski’s truth: that women have carried the torch of poetry even in silence, even when men turned their gaze toward wars, commerce, and politics. Where the world dismissed poetry as “soft,” women preserved it as essential.

And yet Wakoski calls the imbalance “odd,” for poetry is not the inheritance of one gender. Men too have written great poetry—Whitman, Eliot, Hughes, Neruda—yet perhaps fewer men have clung to poetry as a daily bread. Why? Because the demands of strength, conquest, and pride have often pulled men away from the vulnerable work of verse. In societies where emotion was called weakness, many men denied themselves the nourishment of poetry. Wakoski’s reflection highlights this loss, and challenges us to ask: what would the world gain if both men and women gave themselves equally to the art of poetry?

The origin of her wisdom lies in the gatherings she witnessed, in rooms filled with women who came to hear and to share. Rather than mourn the absence of men, she chose to be perfectly happy, seeing in it the resilience of poetry itself—that it will always find listeners, it will always find makers, as long as one part of humanity embraces it. This is no small triumph. For in an age where poetry is often cast aside, to have women bear it forward is to keep alive a flame that might otherwise be extinguished.

The lesson is clear: poetry thrives where hearts are open. It belongs to no one tribe, no one gender, no one class, but to all who are willing to listen, to feel, to write. If more women than men carry the art, so be it; yet let men not excuse themselves, nor deny the nourishment of verse. For poetry is the training of the soul, the sharpening of perception, the binding of humanity together. It is the music of being itself.

Practical steps follow for all who hear. Read poetry daily, not as an academic exercise, but as a spiritual one. Write your own verses, even if they never leave your home, for the act of shaping words is itself a form of healing. Do not let shame or pride silence you; poetry welcomes both laughter and tears. Share poetry with others, so that the community of verse is not diminished but expanded. And let men especially be challenged: embrace poetry not as weakness, but as strength, for to master words is to master one’s soul.

Thus Wakoski’s words shine with wisdom: when she looks upon an audience of women, she sees not lack, but abundance, the continuation of a lineage that has preserved poetry across the ages. Yet her insight calls us all, men and women alike, to remember that poetry is the inheritance of every human being. Let none forsake it, but let all take up its song, so that the flame may burn brighter in every age, guiding hearts toward truth and beauty.