Is that a poem in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

If you’re reading this on Thursday, April 29, you’re in luck. Today is National Poem in Your Pocket Day! You won’t get a day off. You likely won’t even have a BBQ. But it’s an important day anyway.
To be honest, when I first heard about Poem in Your Pocket Day, I rolled my eyes. Ugh, I thought, another cheesy, over sincere attempt to force poetry relevance down the poetry doubter’s throats. But you know what, after reading some of the Poem in Your Pocket celebration suggestions, I’ve changed my mind. It’s actually kind of anti-establishment, and I like it!
Before I get into the why, how about a little history? I make a lot of noise about the importance of language, the adherence to tradition and respecting the classic form and style of the poem – all things most modernist poetry and slam is sadly lacking.
I’ve written a lot the past couple weeks about what poetry should not be. It is not about some guy shouting at you at a coffee house. It is not about hating your parents. Or a starving artist. Or being shocking. Or vampires.
It’s bigger than that, and whether it’s classical or modern, the poem’s the thing. The great masters don’t actively try to be different. They just are different. Above caring. Poetry – the really good poetry that makes you change your life – is like that.
What I do like about modern poetry is its spirit. The best slammers – like Jack McCarthy who is well known in New England, or Sierra DeMuldar from St. Paul – are theatrical, yes, but there’s a spirit in their poems that elevates the work beyond the individual. They give over to the language – it’s like speaking in tongues, a
delirious surrender to meaning greater than the everyday world. That’s why it matters. Blake did it. And Whitman. Eliot, Frost and Atwood.
Their work simply overshadows the writer, and that’s where the Poem in Your Pocket celebration comes in.
It’s actually so ridiculous, so giddily insane that it elevates the art form.
Here’s the conceit. Pick a poem you love, carry it in your pocket, then randomly share it with strangers. Just whip it out and read it on the street. Today, on your way home, stop at the 7-11, pull out your poem and read it to the guy behind the counter.
My only suggestion would be to pick short poems so you can get out of there before the cops come.
Some further suggestions for celebrating Poem in Your Pocket month are equally bold.
For example, urge businesses to offer discounts for those carrying poems. This is fantastic! The heck with Health Care, this is real Socialism my friends – paying for your coffee with a poem. If somebody read me a poem out loud, on the street, apropos of nothing, I’d buy them a coffee too.
Here’s another: project a poem on a wall, inside or outside. Multi-media! Of course, in Manchester, only graffiti gets to stay for any length of time on a wall, everything else is immediately painted over, so that might not work.
One more: text a poem to friends. I’m going to do this. No explanation, no warning. All my friends are just going to get the following message – “So much depends upon a red wheel barrow, glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens.” Let them figure it out! Fun, right?
Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day my fellow rebels. Feel the power!

Trying to find something that isn't there

In college, I knew it as erasure poetry. Now it's called found poetry. But really it's like that big square of letters you used to puzzle out as s kid, where you had to find the “hidden” words and the remaining letters spelled out the answer to some puzzle.
Only this is National Poetry Month, so I'd expect to find this “not” poetry form in the coffee shops and alternative presses and college dorms after midnight. Where I did not expect to find it was The New York Times.
Yes, our esteemed brethren to the south is in the middle of a Found Poem contest. The Times describes a found poem as “poems that are composed from words and phrases found in another text.” Guess whose text the Times suggest using to create these poems? If you said the New York Times, Bingo!
Where do I begin without just shrieking? I'm going to ignore the Times here for the moment. It's possible that they are just the messengers – the unwitting lackeys in this battle for the heart and mind of poetry. Instead I'd like to lay today's blame squarely at the feet of Stephen Dunning and William Stafford, two guys from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) that the Times use as a point of reference to justify their lazy and ridiculous contest.
Here's some jewels from Dunning and Stafford's article describing found and headline poems:
– the “nice thing” about found and headline poems is you don't have to start from scratch.
– Found poems celebrate ordinary prose.
– They are “against fancy language. Words with too many syllables”
– Found poetry is a reaction against “poetic language”
– You should not search for found poetry in sources such as song lyrics or poetry. Why? “They're both already poetry.”
Who wrote this, Sarah Palin? How's that fancy shmancy book learnin' workin' out for ya?
This is the source material the New York Times used for their contest. This is a English teachers’ organization. I have an idea for a great contest for the Times.
It's called the Write a Poem Contest. It's where readers actually sit down and think up words based on how they feel, then they write them down, then they arrange and edit them INTO A POEM.
Have we disconnected so completely from our inner mechanisms that we have to “create” poetry off cereal boxes? (Another suggestion by Dunning and Stafford by the way.)
Or, is the pace and contemplative nature of the poem unable to compete with today's world?
The found poetry crowd argues that this technique allows the writer to think simply, to “discover” direct meaning from unneeded and unnatural hollow words. Nonsense. There’s no reason to treat students like they have blunt head trauma. The joy of poetry, both writing it and reading it, is not from finding meaning in someone else words, but to create meaning from your own experience, and inner language.
Shrug off this lazy and self-serving attitude. If you want to look for the real reasons why so many people feel poetry is elitist and out of touch with reality, here it is. I'll take your poetry blog about unicorns and wizards any day over this clueless and, ultimately dangerous, approach to poetry.

Swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag

I love swag. Pens with a little scroll that runs down the side. Erasers in the shape of famous buildings. Tote bags, lots and lots of tote bags. I have a tote bag, in which I keep all my tote bags, because you never know.
Businesses have swag. Whole industries have swag. You don’t see the estate of John Wayne or James Dean having any issues with plastering those icons’ faces all over your kids’ underwear.
It’s branding, pure and simple. Get that image in the faces of people and those people buy the movies, music, etc.
So it got me thinking. Why is poetry any different? Why is there no poetry swag? Heck, half the famous poets have been dead so long, it’s likely all public domain anyway. I mean, we’re in the middle of National Poetry Month, people. Why are we not inundated with guys dressed like Shakespeare selling us fast food?
So I went straight to www.poets.org looking for an answer. In case you don’t know who they are, poets.org is run by the Academy of American Poets. I know, I know... snore. Anyway, they are the ones who attempt to keep the poetry torch lit in America by highlighting poetry landmarks, holding readings and working with schools.
I was pleased to discover a Poetry Store on their Web site. Swag, here I come! Was I disappointed. Sure, there’s the standard audio recordings of guys like Robert Graves and plenty of mugs and T-shirts, but anybody can do those. I wanted more. I dug a little deeper in their store and found ... an Emily Dickinson necklace? For $68? An Emily Dickinson baby doll T-shirt? I don’t even know where to begin on how off the mark that is.
Anything here that isn’t Dickinson-related?
How about Four Chinese Poets: The National Tour Broadside for $30? Sheesh. Maybe a T.S. Eliot “Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” brooch? How do you even begin to explain that at a party? Do they know what that poem is about, even?
Fine, enough of this. Why perpetuate the myth that poets are humorless literary dandies? It is a myth, right?
Here are a couple suggestions for poetry swag that I would buy:
-Pablo Neruda aphrodisiacs. Here was a short, pudgy, balding man who actually had women throwing their undergarments at him at readings. So why not a series of ginseng-like energy drinks (different flavors, of course) to sell at checkout lines and corner bodega counters? Call it Pablo Power Drinks.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning word puzzle books. Just how many ways does Browning love thee? Is the depth, breadth and height that her soul can reach one way or three? Like Sudoku only more difficult to figure out and even when you have the answer it always changes.
-Robert Frost good neighbor rocks. You remember Pet Rocks? Well, how much fun it would be to fence off your office cubicle from the rest of your co-workers with a traditional New England stone wall, as a pretense to getting along better. Brilliant!
-Sylvia Plath Easy-Bake Ovens. Too soon? I’m just thinking of ways to get the younger generation involved.
You see where I’m going here? Though all the poets.org swag did not turn me off. My order has already been placed for the Iambic Pentameter tote bag.

Would Frost go viral?

If Robert Frost were alive today, would he have a blog? The guy was a marketing dream – folksy, approachable, famous in his lifetime, but not a snob in public. Most important, he was accessible. And what's more accessible in today's culture than having a blog?

Well, if you know me you know where this is going, but I want to back up for a moment and explain how this thought even crossed my mind. If you've been breathing in New Hampshire the past week, I'm sure you've seen every media outlet positively fall over themselves to bring you the “news” story about Granite State of Mind, the You Tube Jay-Z music video parody going viral. It's a funny video, made by a group of local film and video makers calling themselves the Super Secret Project.

What stood out for me, though, was that a whole verse of the song was Frost's “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” If you don't know the poem, stop right now and either go read it, or turn to the News of the Weird. (What's wrong with you that you don't know that poem?) Anyway, recasting one of the most popular poems in the English language to a rap actually worked! This I think was due to both the film-makers obvious affection for the poem, but also because Frost's work is melodic. It lends itself to all types of reimaginings because it is so good – insightful, perfectly structured language.

So, I thought, if Frost stands up to a rap, and sounds good on You Tube, think of what he'd be able to do with today's technology. You really want my opinion? No way Frost would have a blog. To come to this conclusion I searched out the blogs of other current well known poets. Robert Pinsky. No blog. Billy Collins. Nope. Our own Donald Hall or Maxine Kumin. Zip. Now, Pinsky does have a web site for his Favorite Poem Project and Collins has a cool poetry/video site called Billy Collins Action Poetry. (Great name by the way.) But the real masters, the ones who depend on words, not wiz bang, don't need it.

So... blogs. I started looking, and reading. I Googled and Googled poetry blogs till my eyes hurt. I checked local stuff, international stuff. I read blogs by 12 year olds and 95 year olds. Blogs with poky dots and blogs with flowers. Blogs where the parents Haiku about their infants, and blogs where spinsters write eulogies to their cats. And now, my friends, I'm done with that. Here's a bold statement – of the millions and millions of poetry blogs out there, they all stink.
Prove me wrong. Write to me, here, at this paper. I'll leave my email at the bottom. Find me a good poetry blog. If you do, I will highlight it. I will sing its praises. I will take it out for tea and crumpets.

Here are the rules, based on my completely scientific and deeply insightful 30 minutes spent on line:

1. The blog must not reference unicorns, or any mystical creatures. Mythology is ok. Think the Iliad, not Clash of the Titans.
2. No vampires. Enough with the vampires.
3. No fan fiction – I'm talking to you Harry Potter. That goes for any universe starting with “Star.”
4. No blogs about how great the Cure is/was. You'd be amazed at how much poetry there is out there about bands.
5. Finally, no depression poetry until you have facial hair and/or a job.

Got it? Good. Now go find me a good poetry blog. My email is dszczesny@hippopress.com

5 Ways Poetry Immolates

Happy National Poetry Month! Wait, wait don't stop reading!
I know poetry has a bad rap.You saw the word poetry in that first line and you rolled your eyes, didn't you? I'm here to tell you that it has to end. This column will be a metaphorical line in the sand. More poets need to understand what a metaphor is anyway. There used to be a time when poetry mattered, when poets were looked to for insight into the human condition. And yes, were respected. Sadly, today, poetry more often than not deserves that bad rap. So, in these pages, each week, we'll deconstruct what's gone wrong, and how it can be fixed.
We'll start with the basics - just where has poetry gone off the tracks? Here are five reasons poetry shoots itself in the foot:

5) The Form Itself. What makes so many people cringe at the thought of poetry? Easy. So much of it is bad, because everybody thinks they can write one. Well you can't, so stop trying. Being able to finish the follow line "There once was a man from Nantucket...." does not make you a poet. Nor does anything to do with unicorns, wizards or France. And just because you know what iambic pentameter is does not make you Shakespeare.

4) Everyone Can Publish It. Yes, I'm going to say it. The Internet. Those damn tubes allow ANYONE to publish their badly written poem about a turtle. It's like the Internet is the worst kind of enabler. And that goes for novel writing, scanning your crappy art, and taking pictures of bees on flowers as well. The Internet can give you immediate access to readers. What it cannot do is edit your poem. Find an editor. Until then, keep your poem off the tubes.

3) Slam Poetry. I've said it before and I'm thrilled to have a forum to say it again. Bad poetry does not get any better if it's yelled at you. Poetry is about language. Slam is about theatrics. Save it for the theater. Frost did not need to swear, shout or wave his hands. Why? Because he knew how to write a poem.

2) Pretentious Publishing Styles. Printing a poem about a bird in the shape of a bird is irritating. Period. So is printing a poem sideways on the page. So is having a page fold out. Also, printing an already published essay and blocking out the words to create a "new" poem is lazy, not poetry.

1) Sylvia Plath. If only Sylvia had confided her hatred for her father in a good psychiatrist instead of unleashing her mopey, boo-hoo prose on generations of teenage girls, we wouldn't have Twilight. That's right... connect the dots people. Until poetry sheds its sticky, glittery glaze of sad teenagers who apparently no one understands, it'll only get the respect it deserves.