Today was the announcement of our nation’s newest poet laureate, Donald Hall, 77, who has quite a polished New England pedigree. Born in New Haven, CT, schooled at Phillips Exeter, BA from Harvard, Litt.D from Bates and throw in a B.Litt from Oxford while you’re at it. The NY Times describes him as “outspoken” and continues:
Mr. Hall, a poet in the distinctive American tradition of Robert Frost, has also been a harsh critic of the religious right’s influence on government arts policy. And as a member of the advisory council of the National Endowment for the Arts during the administration of George H. W. Bush, he referred to those he thought were interfering with arts grants as “bullies and art bashers.”
It would be interesting to see a person from the perch as the nation’s Poet Laureate deliver some noble jabs of prose into the ribs of this administration.
The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress serves as the nation’s official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.
States the LoC and judging by this poet’s past actions, Hall very well may just raise the national consciousness, through poetry, over matters domestic and abroad and I think that would be an incredibly powerful statement.
I’m not familiar with this poet’s work, nor am I very familiar with the great poetic works of our country’s and our world’s past, it just never really was my bag. But poetry has undoubtedly touched me in a very deep way at various points in my short life.
Poetry can be used as a very personal exercise in putting emotion to paper when screaming, crying or beating the shit out of something just won’t do [hey, sorta like blogging]. Reading poetry is always a challenge. So subjective. So personal. A word can mean twenty different things to twenty different people said twenty different ways. Sometimes you’re left confused and not even the poet can explain it to you.
The power of the word, spoken and in print, is something I’ve revered since a little kid and have never been able to get a hold of in terms of “poetry” and likely never will. But that won’t stop me from enjoying something that just knocks me to my ass with some incredible pugnacious string of words. One such poem is Amiri Baraka’s Somebody Blew Up America. Baraka was the New Jersey poet laureate in 2002, but later forced out of the position over the controversy this poem caused. It starts:
(All thinking people
oppose terrorism
both domestic
& international…
But one should not
be used
To cover the other)
Any pieces of poetry or prose which touched you significantly or kept you going in this fight against the crazies out there?
