Grasshopper | A Poem by Ron Padgett

April 14 - Here's a poem for you today: "Grasshopper" by Ron Padgett from "How Long" via www.poets.org.

“Grasshopper” is a great example of how Ron Padgett gets at big ideas of what it means to be human using simple, every day diction and images in his poems. I especially appreciate the reminder that, “...You are / who you are, right now.”

I was reminded of Padgett’s poems a couple of years ago when Jim Jarmusch’s film “Paterson” came out. Adam Driver plays a bus driver who writes poems based on his daily observations. The poems we hear in the film are written by Ron Padgett. Except for one poem that Jarmusch wrote which is a lovely poem. Paterson is the name of a town in New Jersey where the poet William Carlos Williams lived and wrote an epic poem also titled “Paterson (New Directions).”

Video clips via Storyblocks.com.