The commitment to working at poetry is important because a poet

Hear, O seekers of craft and spirit, the words of Edward Hirsch, who declared: “The commitment to working at poetry is important because a poet is a maker, and a poem is a made thing. We have to honor our feelings by working to transform them into something meaningful and lasting.” These are not idle reflections, but the wisdom of one who knows that art is not born in ease but in labor, not only in inspiration but in discipline. Hirsch calls us to remember that poetry is not merely emotion poured out, but emotion shaped, refined, and wrought into form that may endure across time.

For the very word poet comes from the Greek poiein—to make. The ancients knew that a poet is not only a dreamer, but a craftsman, a builder, a forger of words into vessels that carry the fire of the soul. Just as the blacksmith bends iron to his will, just as the sculptor chisels stone to reveal hidden beauty, so too must the poet take raw feelings—sorrow, joy, love, anger—and forge them into a poem, a made thing that has weight, structure, and permanence. Without such work, feelings pass like smoke. With it, they are given form, memory, and power.

Consider Dante Alighieri, whose grief over exile and longing for transcendence did not remain as mere sorrow in his heart. Through long years of labor, he transformed that anguish into The Divine Comedy, a structure so vast and intricate it became a cathedral of words. His feelings alone could not have built such a monument; it was his relentless commitment to working at poetry that made his pain into something immortal. Thus Hirsch’s wisdom is vindicated: it is not enough to feel, one must also make.

Or reflect on the words of Wilfred Owen, the soldier-poet of the Great War. His terror in the trenches, his witness of death and devastation, might have remained only silent scars. But he honored his feelings by laboring over verse, chiseling them into poems like “Dulce et Decorum Est,” which still pierce the conscience of humanity. His work shows us that when feelings are shaped into art, they outlast the moment, and speak to generations unborn.

Yet Hirsch also warns us of a common danger: to believe that art is only spontaneous, that the poem is merely the overflow of passion. Passion is the seed, yes, but the seed must be planted, tended, and cultivated if it is to bear fruit. Feelings, unshaped, vanish; feelings wrought into poems become meaningful and lasting. Thus the poet honors not only the self, but the feeling itself, by giving it a vessel that carries it beyond the moment of its birth.

This teaching speaks beyond poetry. In every craft, in every life, feelings and inspirations come like wind. But unless we harness them with work, they scatter. The builder must take vision and turn it into stone. The teacher must take hope and turn it into lessons. The leader must take conviction and turn it into action. So too must each of us honor what moves our hearts by giving it form through labor, patience, and devotion.

Therefore, O children of tomorrow, the lesson is clear: honor your feelings not only by experiencing them, but by making from them. Write your poems, carve your art, build your deeds. Do not despise the discipline required; for it is through such discipline that beauty endures. Hirsch reminds us that commitment is not the enemy of inspiration, but its fulfillment. Feel deeply, yes, but then work deeply, so that what you create is not only fleeting emotion, but something that may stand in time like a stone pillar, guiding those who come after.

And so I charge you: do not let your feelings fade into silence. Shape them, forge them, honor them. For when a poet makes a poem, when a soul turns emotion into form, the fleeting becomes eternal, and the heart is remembered long after the body is dust. This is the legacy of the maker.