2007_05_01_archive

Not Poetry Month

Well, it's May 1 today and that means April, National Poetry Month, is

over. I've enjoyed posting daily for April and hope you've found some

useful ideas and examples. But I also have mixed feelings about moving

on, as if every other month of the year we can just ignore poetry.

Although I may not be able to post daily, I will continue rolling with

my efforts at promoting poetry for young people. I also welcome any

suggestions for new poetry-related topics to consider. But for today,

I thought I would share this cranky nugget from an essay by Charles

Bernstein.

"As an alternative to National Poetry Month, I propose that we have an

International Anti-Poetry month. As part of the activities, all verse

in public places will be covered over--from the Statue of Liberty to

the friezes on many of our government buildings. Poetry will be

removed from radio and TV (just as it is during the other eleven

months of the year). Parents will be asked not to read Mother Goose

and other rimes to their children but only ... fiction. Religious

institutions will have to forego reading verse passages from the

liturgy and only prose translations of the Bible will recited, with

hymns strictly banned. Ministers in the Black churches will be kindly

requested to stop preaching. [The musical] "Cats" will be closed for

the month by order of the Anti-Poetry Commission. Poetry readings will

be replaced by self-help lectures. Love letters will have to be

written only in expository paragraphs. Baseball will have to start its

spring training in May. No vocal music will be played on the radio or

sung in the concert halls. Children will have to stop playing all

slapping and counting and singing games and stick to board games and

football."

What a great point about how poetry is both something special and

something ordinary. I love the subversive notion of "banning" poetry

as a way of making it an irresistible temptation. I also like the idea

that poetry is an intrinsic part of language and life. Here's one of

my favorite poems to illustrate this very point.

You Enter A Poem. . .

By Robin Hirsch

You enter a poem

Just like you enter a room.

You open the door

And what do you see?

A sink, for example,

A bathtub, a toilet

(Does a toilet belong in a poem?)

And you say to yourself, "Aha!

It's a bathroom."

The next time you enter

You know it's a bathroom

And you notice

The towels on the rack

And their color,

The mirror, the tiles, the sofa

(What? There's a sofa? In the bathroom?)

And you say: "Aha!

It's that kind of a bathroom."

The third time you enter

You realize

One of the towels is frayed

There are streaks on the mirror

And the person who did the grouting

Messed up in that corner.

You open the drawers and the cabinets.

You empty them,

You take an inventory:

Toothbrushes, toothpaste, cotton balls, cleanser,

Toilet paper

(Does toilet paper belong in a poem?)

Not to mention

The child-proof bottles of pills--

Which you know of course how to open--

And you say to yourself: "Aha!

It's that kind of a

This is how you enter a

I'm beginning to know this

Poem."

Also in: Hirsch, Robin. 2002. FEG: Ridiculous Stupid Poems for

Intelligent Children. New York: Little, Brown.