This is a book about how poetry works its magic.  Poetry has the ability to break open things locked deep inside us, and engage us with zones of feeling that we didn't know was buried deep down inside. This is a lyrical picture-book that offers a playful and penetrating answer to the question of what a poem is and what it does. And as it does that, it shines a sidewise gleam on the larger question of what we most hunger for in life and how we give shape to those deepest longings. 

It is a tale that follows young Arthur as he tries to salve his beloved red fish Leon’s affliction of boredom. His mom suggest giving him a poem. Puzzled and unsure what a poem is, Arthur goes looking in the pantry, only to hear the noodles sigh that there is no poem there. He searches in the closet and under his bed, but the vacuum cleaner and the dust balls have no poem, either. So begins the wonderful meta-story of how poetry comes into being as a tapestry of images, metaphors, and magpie borrowings. Each person along the way contributes to Arthur’s tapestry a different answer, infused with the singular poetic truth of his or her own life.