In America, there’s a long-running tradition of proclaiming poetry dead — or near dead. In 2016, in his book “The Hatred of Poetry,” acclaimed poet and writer Ben Lerner explained, “Every few years an essay appears in a mainstream periodical denouncing poetry or proclaiming its death … Many more people agree they hate poetry than can agree what poetry is.” To those who hate poetry, to those who proclaim poetry dead, I say, “Go, go now to Astoria for the FisherPoets Gathering.”

I came to my first FPG in 2013. I had finished a graduate degree in creative writing the spring before and spent the winter as an intern at Copper Canyon Press, an esteemed poetry publisher in Port Townsend, Wash. By no means did I think of poetry as dead, but I did think of it as a bit pretentious, elite, refined. I thought of poetry readings as events that happened in fancy-schmancy, wood-paneled libraries with silent audience members — awed by the poet’s words, perhaps, or just bored out of their minds. What I did appreciate from poetry was an attention to the world around us, the intention to find the holy, the humorous and the beautiful, articulate it, and share it.

I’m the daughter of a commercial fisherman, and the year before my first FPG, I’d also worked my seventh summer as a seiner deckhand in Southeast Alaska. In addition to loving poetry, I loved the feeling of sea salt crusting my face; the sound of a remote inlet after the anchor’s dropped and the engine’s off; the taste of salmon caught, fileted, and baked in the same half-hour; and the feel of a rowdy bar filled with smoke and strangers soon to be friends.

At my first gathering, I found the best of fishing and the best of poetry in a sort of elegant mishmash of worlds. And I found proof — undeniable, irrefutable, living, breathing proof: Poetry is not dead, and not only is poetry not dead, poetry is fun, like that quirky half-estranged aunt you always wished you had. She’s vibrant, and thriving, and hopeful, and she came back from her last trip to sea bearing gifts.

What kind of gifts? A hundred and fifty years ago the Spanish poet Adolfo Bécquer wrote, “Maybe, one day, there won’t be poets, but there will always be poetry.” He articulated an idea that I think FisherPoets know instinctually: poems come through us, not from us. When we take a moment to write the poems we find in the natural world around us, or when we take a moment to listen to the talented poets among us — as you’ll have a chance to do this weekend — we are gifted with community, laughter, joy, shared sorrow, epiphany and a whole range of human emotions that make us, well, more human.

Which is all to say that if you love poetry or hate it, if you’re here for your first gathering or your 22nd: Welcome! It’s going to be a special weekend at a time when so much of the world feels out of control and so many of us could use a little extra pep in our step. I’m so glad you’re here, and I wish you an FPG weekend that feels a little like this poem:

“This Is the Dream”

By Olav H. Hauge

This is the dream we carry through the world

that something fantastic will happen

that it has to happen

that time will open by itself

that doors shall open by themselves

that the heart will find itself open

that mountain springs will jump up

that the dream will open by itself

that we one early morning

will slip into a harbor

that we have never known.

Translated from Norwegian by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin

Originally published by Copper Canyon Press