How to be Perfect

Not everybody likes poetry. Sadly, many people were taught in school that poetry is Complex and is Too Deep for Anyone Other than Literature Professors to Contemplate. Very sad.

Do you feel like that? Do you feel reading poetry is akin to reading in another language?

This little book could change that. Padgett is a Poet for the People. Billy Collins-ish. Readable. Yet thoughtful.

I ran across Padgett a few weeks ago via Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. Here's just a tiny excerpt from this book's title poem, How to Be Perfect:

Get some sleep.

Eat an orange every morning.

Be friendly. It will help make you happy.

Hope for everything. Expect nothing.

Take care of things close to home first. Straighten up your room
before you save the world. Then save the world....