Poetry Meme

[kniedzw]

I try to avoid posting memes, if possible, but ratmmjess noted that it's National Poetry Month, so I figured that I'd follow his lead and try to post a few poems this month that I've found particularly beautiful, inspirational, or otherwise nifty. (I'll also point to, as an aside, a seemingly controversial essay by Charles Bernstein, wherein he rails

Comments

[ratmmjess]

Nice.

Bernstein's a grump. Anything that helps spread poetry is a good thing.

[kniedzw]

He's a grump, but in some of what he says, particularly the following...The only reason that poetry matters is that is has something different to offer, something slower on the uptake, maybe, but more intense for all that, and also something necessarily smaller in scale in terms of audience. Not better than mass culture but a crucial alternative to it.
...has a kernel of truth to it, even if he said it far more acerbically than I would have. I linked to it more to give a different perspective on National Poetry Month than to actually endorse what he said as a whole. Anything that helps spread the practice of "thinking twice" is a good thing, in my book. :)

[ratmmjess]

I suppose. I mean, I agree with that quote, sure.

But as a general principle I think it's better to criticize an absence or lack rather than a presence--so, for example, saying sometime in March or May, "Shouldn't we celebrate poetry this month?" rather than saying, in April, "Don't celebrate National Poetry Month!"

But I suppose his essay has us talking poetry, and that, too, is a good thing. :-)