The difference between a comedian and a poet is that a comedian finds something in the world representative of something we can all identify with and shows us the humor in it – that ultimately allows us to laugh at ourselves. A poet sees the same thing as the comedian but turns our desire to laugh into a desire to cry, if even unseen tears of inspiration or wonder. But both, if doing their job will make us see ourselves and our world more clearly than the crispest mirror held just inches from our skin.
The difference between a poet and a comedian is that a comedian has the uncanny ability to take an every day moment and turn it into something that shakes our soul through laughter making us desire for more until our entire body is smiling and pulsating in true delight. The poet skips the laughter and uses metaphor to twist the every day interpretation like an apple tree whose seed was split and planted with that of another fruit growing from it’s branches something entirely unexpected when you bite into it, but enjoyable and nourishing.
The difference between a poet and a comedian is that the comedian is invited into your living room in any given possible opportunity, because we understand the healing power laughter has on us all, and we seek its medicine delivered in that way. A poet, rarely invited, will hide behind his or her words, vulnerable in his or her thoughts not ever really knowing if his metaphors or insight will be understood and god forbid laughed at. The poet when he is brave enough to share anything he writes will just hold his breath and pray that even one person will recognize themselves enough to know at the end of it all, we are just human and stand naked, in a galaxy that has already re-created itself billions of times, over and over and over again.