| The Incredible Shrinking Woman | |||
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Thursday, March 18, 2004 ( 3:10 PM ) Melody When I was in high school, I had the good fortune to take a Contemporary Literature class that introduced me to some of my favorite writers and poets. We did a unit on the Beats, a generation of poets who were influenced by, among other things, jazz. It was through this class that I was introduced to one of my favorite beat poets-- Diane di Prima. If you get a chance, please take a look at what is probably my favorite Diane di Prima poem: Brass Furnace Going Out: Song After an Abortion. It's long but well worth it. If you've got less time, you might just check out this one, which is a little more obscure but still a very good read: The Practice of Magical Evocation. My wonderful teacher for that class set up a beat coffeehouse for us. He had us all select a favorite beat poet and then come in costume to read their poems at the coffeehouse. I was di Prima. I love reading poetry out loud. I had so much fun doing this that later, when I was president of our English Department's English Honor Society-- Sigma Tau Delta, I organized a Women's Poetry night. You could come read a poem by your favorite female poet or read your own stuff. It was well-attended, and I believe it became a yearly event. I wish there were more chances to hear poetry read out loud. It is an art form that is really dependant on sound. Sometimes the words don't leap off the page at you until you hear them pronounced. I'll always be grateful for the fact that Butler University, where I got my Bachelor's degree, had a terrific visiting writer's program. Through it, I was priviliged to see great poets like Allen Ginsberg, Galway Kinnell, Amiri Baraka, and Adrienne Rich, read from their own work, and I'm a lifetime poetry lover because of it. Poetry really can inspire social change, and poets are keen social critics. In 1997, when Adrienne Rich refused to accept the National Medal for the Arts, she wrote to then President Clinton, "There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know that art--in my own case the art of poetry--means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner-table of power which holds it hostage. The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a devastating rate. A President cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored." There's an article on Salon this morning that argues that hip-hop is the poetry of Generation Y. Seems right to me. It's about time we remembered that poetry is supposed to be the voice of the people, not of academia, and maybe coming to accept hip-hop's poetic qualities will inspire a new appreciation of the spoken word. # |
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