The best poets achieve this. The best poems become part of the collective conscious like the work of Walt Whitman or Robert Frost or Verlaine or any number of great poets. They become touchstones of the human experience, and like signs in a deeply thicketed wood, they help guide us, tell us which way to go, or in the very least, when we are lost, they offer up some companionship and let us know that we are not alone in our deepest feelings of isolation and alienation.

A good poem let's the reader know that they are not alone in their experience. The reader, especially the reader who is not him or herself a poet, may then take the work and have that eureka moment of "That's it" - that is exactly how I feel. The poet puts into words what others cannot. The poet communicates in an economical and effective way those things that are slippery or are difficult to grasp. A good poet will take on the most slippery subject, tackle the thorniest issue, the most complex equation and a tangle of human emotions and will attempt to make some sense of the issues. Making sense of chaos is work. We write to better our understanding of our experience, or sometimes, to just get the feelings out there, on paper, and out of ourselves where they would otherwise fester and grow. So poetry is often therapeutic, not only for the poet, but again for the reader who is able to relate and feel less alone in their experience.

Most of this is likely trite, though I still think it bears repeating and certainly cannot hurt. But the big confession that many poets are liars (though clearly, I cannot speak for everyone, because I am sure there are poets who write only about their own experience, which I personally would find limiting, but that is me.). But in my own experience and opinion, the most successful and engaging and intriguing poets are those who are able to synthesize more than their own little world. These are poets who are able to dream and imagine the life of some other. To put them in another's place and dream and imagine and decode.

Of course, like most writers, I have written poems that are almost entirely autobiographical (which ones, that is for me to know.) I would say that in almost every poem, there exists some element of myself - that much seems inevitable. Those that are more autobiographical can be raw, full of blood and guts and pain and they come from a deep place. But I can tell you too that I have read of the painful experiences of others and written about this as if it were my own. This is empathy. I need not take a handful of pastel pills every night or every hour, to imagine what it is to feel the way I imagine Anne Sexton felt. Imagine. No, I cannot tell you exactly how she felt - only she could do that, and in the end, she made the ultimate statement by removing herself from this life and taking her immense talent with her, in effect, robbing us of her poems and robbing herself of life and experience through her suicide.