Natalia GarrettI never thought of myself as someone who could be writing poems. However, I grew up in the Soviet Union where poetry, music, theater and other forms of art were everywhere. They were more prevalent than sports and the main form of entertainment, somehing that united everyone, no matter if you worked at a factory or a research laboratory . Poetry was the escape for adults and education for children. Reciting poetry was a skill that schools required everyone to have. My praise goes to those teachers of literature who managed to cultivate understanding of literature and even succeeded in transferring their love of it to students. I will never forget amazing lessons when we explored different types of poetry from William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman to Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, Sergey Yesenin, Feyodor Tyutchev, Vladimir Mayakovsky... The energy transmitted by poets and their stories added a whole new dimension to my being and the way in which my friends and I related to one another and described our world. Movies, stories and other forms of art are wonderful but there is nothing quiet like poetry that unpacks our own imagination, that teaches us to read between the lines. Words have a certain magic power capable of helping us to equally slow down or deliver the most powerful calls to action as well. It is my hope that this and any other attempts at poetry serve to connect human experiences so no language, location or length of time can be a barrier but that the language of poetry serves to empower everyone to feel and express our humanity in a memorable way. Read More Read Less