Toni Dockter: Filosophy with a Fuchsia Flair

April is National Poetry Month. How will you celebrate? I’ll be writing a 4-part series about it. (This blog is Part 1.)

Established by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month a celebration of the essence of poetry for the purpose of upgrading its status in our national consciousness. Make us pay more attention to it. Appreciate it more. Like it more. As we used to say in Marketing 101, the idea is to “sex it up a bit.” (Ugh. Always hated that expression.) From the Academy’s website (poets.org):

The concept is to widen the attention of individuals and the media—to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern. We hope to increase the visibility and availability of poetry while acknowledging and celebrating poetry’s ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated.

Noble goal. Tough goal. Too bad the “art of reading” in the U.S. is declining as fast as the economy.

To accomplish their goal, does the Academy have to make a paradigm shift from literary culture to pop culture by posting poetry videos on youtube—like Robert Pattinson reading and dramatizing The Highwayman by Aldred Noyes (1880-1958)?

First and last stanza:

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding—

Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

 

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;

He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;

He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there

But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Terrific poem! But I vote for George Clooney reading it instead.

Or—for poetry’s pop culture shift—how about a Dancing with the Poets reality TV show? While reciting the poem, the poets move to the meter of the poem—move their feet to the feet! Perfect host: Maya Angelou. Doesn’t she have the best voice? I think natural tap dancers would have an advantage.

Hopefully America has not come to that…but it has come to this. Check out this shirt. Those are the syllabic marks for an iambic pentameter line of poetry, like da DUM, da DUM. Too funny. And too arcane? Oh those wacky poets!

Speaking of which…Edward Hirsch wrote a guidebook called How to Read Poetry: And Fall ion Love with Poetry. He says, “…the sound of poetry is the source of its primitive pleasures” and a lyric poem is “stored magic,” which “seeks to mesmerize time…crosses frontiers and outwits the temporal.” Yikes. In the chapter titled The Immense Intimacy, the Intimate Immensity, Hirsch says, “The experience of reading poetry and the kind of knowledge it provides cannot be duplicated elsewhere.” Give me some of the poetry stuff!

Jane Campion's Bright Star

And speaking of reading poetry, in my blog on 2/09/10 I talked about the excellent romantic movie Bright Star, the story of John Keats, British Romantic Poet extraordinaire, and his fiancée/muse, Fanny Braun.

In the movie, Fanny is interested in Keats—and his poems. She wants him to teach her about poetry. She asks him what is the craft of poetry.

Keats looks rather perturbed and says, “The craft of poetry is a sham!” The dialogue continues:

“If poetry does not come as easy on leaves on a tree, then it should not come at all.”

Fanny says, “I still don’t know how to work out this poem.”

Keats replies, “A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in the lake is not to swim to the other side. It’s to be in the lake. Luxuriate in the sensation of the water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.”

Fanny responds, “I like mysteries.”

I think most people do. Ergo, most people should like poetry as well.

Give it a read.