Thursday, November 19, 2020
If the nail stands up, pound on it
I like to think of the poets who shout at the world to pay attention. The world, for the most part, does not pay attention. You can put your words in a beautiful package, and set them right out there, and most people are not in the mood to appreciate the package or say, "oh, that sounds nice," or "I like how you put that." For the most part it's just words passing down the river like logs of fallen trees shooting down toward the sea or wherever rivers go. It's so much water under the bridge so to speak.
Now you can set up an event, say in a bookstore or a bar, and you can get poets up there and they can read their poetry aloud and we can judge whether this actually goes anywhere. This kind of performance poetry has become popular, or at least more popular, in the last ten or twenty years or so until covid made it so we can't all share the same space anymore. And I put my faith in this: that somehow, some way, people prime themselves to hear poetry and then appreciate it, and come out of the situation edified by how well it sounded or how you put it.
But there is another approach: stealth poetry. This means making poetry where people don't expect to see it - like in twitter, or on city buses, or on a neon sign. It doesn't have to rhyme. It just has to be the kind of words that make people say, "that sounds nice," or, "I like how you put that." I carry on with that possibility.
Memes are a kind of poetry. Maybe I should study them, and see what comes of it.
This still has nothing to do with the title, but I'm working on it.
Now you can set up an event, say in a bookstore or a bar, and you can get poets up there and they can read their poetry aloud and we can judge whether this actually goes anywhere. This kind of performance poetry has become popular, or at least more popular, in the last ten or twenty years or so until covid made it so we can't all share the same space anymore. And I put my faith in this: that somehow, some way, people prime themselves to hear poetry and then appreciate it, and come out of the situation edified by how well it sounded or how you put it.
But there is another approach: stealth poetry. This means making poetry where people don't expect to see it - like in twitter, or on city buses, or on a neon sign. It doesn't have to rhyme. It just has to be the kind of words that make people say, "that sounds nice," or, "I like how you put that." I carry on with that possibility.
Memes are a kind of poetry. Maybe I should study them, and see what comes of it.
This still has nothing to do with the title, but I'm working on it.
