I'm paraphrasing a sound bite from Death, Sex & Money with actress Ellen Burstyn, who is 90, talking about what she loves about poetry: “Once you decipher the metaphor in poetry, it is of you. We’re a party to the art.”

I listened again and copied down the direct quote on why Ellen says poetry is awesome: “There’s something about something being said in metaphor and rhyme and rhythm that penetrates deeper. When we read the metaphor, and we know that it’s referring to something else and we have to conjure in our mind what it’s referring to, it’s coming from us now. So we’re a party to the art.”

That was astoundingly accurate, beautiful, and every reason why the energy I put into the work I do reaches the recipient. This is why I strive to infuse meaning in my design, but I try to make the meaning less obvious and somewhat cryptic so there’s a visual metaphor that viewers can decipher for themselves. Once they solve the riddle, they immediately feel connected to the work because it makes them feel clever, and they can see themselves in it. They identify with the meaning and claim the work as part of their identity, allowing it to become a shorthand that speaks for their values. Virtue signaling, even.

If you don’t accept the metaphysical explanation of the transfer of energy through works, consider how deciphering a clever metaphor for yourself, or knowing the covert meaning of something that perhaps others don’t, or mapping your own personal meaning onto the art, changes you and makes you feel more connected to the art.

Design is poetry. Design is engineering. Design is best when it’s both things at once. Artificial intelligence can’t reach people like that. It must be thoughtful and intentional, as well as clean, cohesive, and professionally executed, for it to achieve that level of impact.

Just like children, the work I release no longer belongs to me. It takes on life and meaning to every individual who encounters it and claims it for themselves. Just like how NYC is not one, but nine million cities, a unique snapshot to every person who lives there. I stole that from Colson Whitehead, btw.

On the aforementioned podcast, Ellen dropped that wisdom bomb right after she recited from memory a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Feast":

I drank of every vine
The last was like the first
I came upon no wine
So wonderful as thirst
So feed the grape and bean
To the vintner and the monger
I’ll lie down lean
In my thirst and my hunger

[wow she’s dark af get a book]