Yodi Vaden

Lehigh Valley Vanguard Collections Volume TWELVE Yodi Vaden

Poets are the most vulnerable people you will ever meet. Whether they are publishing in a press or just in their journal, they are choosing to undertake a deeply revealing and raw portrayal of life as they experience it. When poems are available for everyone to read, they are most certainly open letters. Of course, Percy Shelly famously said poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. John F. Kennedy said if poetry and politics could learn to work together we would live in a better world. I believe that to be the case. Some of the most politically potent people I know are poets. They are willing to openly share pain, insight, and many times scathing critiques of our world. Poets have souls intact, unlike many political rhetoricians. Whenever I publish a poem I know the author is taking a great risk with themselves. More than with other styles. It's a risk they take for the sake of us all.