The Haranguing of a forgotten art
Who was the last poet you read? Were they living at the time you began to read their writing? When asked about what poetry they like what does everyone answer? cummings? Frost? Dickenson? Shakespeare? Have you heard the names Louise Gluck, Billy Collins, or Phillip Levine? Why is it that there hasn’t been a visible cannon in Poetry since the ’60s? Why is it that one has to follow poetry to know the current names? Is this because we aren’t teaching anything than the previous Cannon? Is this because it’s harder and less lucrative profession? Is it because reading it is too much work for our sitcom/reality TV A.D.D. minds? (I’m less inclined to believe this last one)
Whatever the reason Poetry, though not my favorite form, can create beautiful spectrum’s of emotion in a more succinct and visceral manner than anything written out in prose or text. So the next time you sit in front of the TV think about picking up the latest Billy Collins for a quick poem. It wont take you more than 2 or 3 minutes to absorb and let settle into your brain and heart. It might start to change your opinion of its worth.
(by the way Gluck, Collins and Levine are all Poet Laureates from the last decade)
In honor, here are a few of my own:
The bright white flash of the city
Exploding paper is hilarious
more so than deconstructing
drinks. The flow of time makes
for illuminous revelations with
exposition that makes no sense
and dialogue which is trite.
What better way to celebrate the
night than to discuss diatribes
of normalcy and illusions of delusion.
Sunday at the bar
Sycophantic rotoscum
devouring thier hoppy
indifference with the
order of benevolence.
Smiles as big as a
Chrysler grill. Loose
immoral bodies thrusting
and grinding to the
Deferential beat.
Thud thud thud
Powerful aphrodisiac
That music
That driving
power these people
live by.
How is happiness so
complete?
How can this cause so much
joy?
At home squalor,
ignoring the fugus which
grows on thier month
old dishes. Who is accountable?
Living a college life;
living paycheck to
paycheck?
Sean McBride 