Essay by Lynda La Rocca
Poetry – April 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
POETRY IS THE Rodney Dangerfield of literature: It gets no respect. Never mind the protests of those who claim to love verse or the fact that many of us “mature” folks can still quote lines from beloved poems memorized in grammar school. And I don’t even want to talk about “celebrity” poets, best known for endeavors like singing, acting, or politics whose verse, generally speaking, ranges from the embarrassing to the abysmal and whose work is published solely because it has a famous name attached to it.
Since 1996, we’ve celebrated National Poetry Month each April (“the cruellest month,” poet T.S. Eliot observed rather presciently). Yet how many schools conduct oral poetry readings or teach poetry-writing skills, such as meter and rhyme scheme, during this period? How many invite local or regional poets to read in the classroom or at assemblies?
We have both state and national poet laureates. Yet how many of us even know their names? And what the heck does a poet laureate do, anyway? (Answers below.)
As someone who has written poetry since childhood, I know how much the public claims to value poetry and how little it actually does.
Poetry is the toughest sell of all in the world of writing. Often, when a poem is accepted for publication, the terms are that the author receives “payment” in the form of copies of the publication. Don’t get me wrong; copies are certainly appreciated. And I’m always thrilled by the opportunity to send my words into the world, which is something of its own reward.
I also understand that publications accepting poetry frequently struggle to stay afloat so that they can keep publishing poetry. But where else in the world of art or commerce would a creator release his or her product for so little compensation?
When poets are actually paid for their work in cold, hard cash, it’s cause for celebration. Occasionally, that payment is lucrative, certainly so for the handful of poets who have made names for themselves. (Way to go, guys!) The rest of us generally spend our poetry earnings on dinner and a glass of good wine at a nice restaurant — or on a fast-food burger and a bottle of Chateau de Screw-Top.
Yet poetry feeds the soul. It connects us with each other. When we use words to “create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound and rhythm,” as my dictionary rather dryly puts it, we transform thoughts, experiences, and desires from the personal into the universal. Poetry lets us overcome differences and touch hands, hearts, and spirits. That all seems pretty valuable and important to me.
Sometimes poetry helps keep the demons at bay, as in the case of the American soldier stranded in the southern Iraqi desert for seven days in the spring of 2003. While Sgt. Matthew Koppi and a comrade awaited rescue, Koppi wrote poetry to his wife, who had given birth to their first child just before his deployment.
And sometimes poetry is what keeps those of us who write it, and those who read it, sane.
. . . a terrible bore:
When you let him in, then he wants to be out;
He’s always on the wrong side of every door,
And as soon as he’s home,
then he’d like to get about.
from Rum Tum Tugger by T.S. Eliot
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever. I was wrong.
from Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden
Poetry helps to make us human. And I wish people would remember that — and appreciate it — every day of the year.
Answers:
1. Mary Crow, who teaches in the creative writing program at Colorado State University, is Colorado’s poet laureate.
2. Louise Glück is the current U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
3. Poet laureates don’t do anything. No, seriously, being named poet laureate is an honor awarded to a poet for great overall achievement. A poet laureate is often appointed to create poems for special events and to commemorate important state or national occasions.
Lynda La Rocca is a freelance writer from Twin Lakes, Colorado who actually makes some (but not enough) money writing poetry.
