blueprints

One Heart at a Time | 155
and popularity, the program has provided the general media a chance to
improve arts coverage. All these activities create a meaningful place for
poetry outside the classroom and bring millions of Americans into contact
with excellent poetry.
this is how poetry grows its audience—on heart at a time.
All of these larger trends are important, but their greatest value rests on
something very small and true that goes to the core of why poetry matters.
Culture is not a marble museum; it is human energy. The true value of
Poetry Out Loud is the sound of a young man or woman speaking the
words of a poem he or she chose to learn by heart. Standing in a classroom
or auditorium, among friends and family or strangers and competitors, the
student momentarily becomes the embodiment of culture. Poetry has no
better bridge between past and present, poet and audience. As this small
affirmation repeats itself hundreds of thousands of times across the republic,
the mysterious power of the art radiates “like shining from shook foil,” and
“gathers to a greatness.” This is how poetry grows its audience—one heart
at a time.