PoemAlley: 6/1/12

For followers of Connecticut Public Radio or Hartford Courant columnist Colin McEnroe, listeners to the Thursday, May 31 broadcast of his self-titled program were treated to guest co-host PoemAlley’s Ralph Nazareth as part of the CMS 2012 Poetry Show (click here to listen to it in the CPR archives).

Reading from his 2005 collection Ferrying Secrets, Ralph and Colin touched on everything from the tempting possibilities of Homeland Security’s new list of terrorist watch words and Connecticut's leading poetry events, to the ties between creativity and mortality and the re-emergence of poetry’s relevance since the late 1980s.

So wide in his appeal that even farmers would stop working their fields to gather and listen to Pablo Neruda read, Ralph observed how poetry, once consigned to the static critiques of academia, is "changing lives” anew by addressing social issues via slams, multimedia performances and other dramatic outlets.

As PoemAlley moderator for many years, Ralph talked of witnessing how the form’s inviting capacity for personal expression has blossomed into a renewed yearning for exercising one’s voice both for oneself and on behalf of those who have none (not to mention the spontaneous capacity to do so through the compositional capabilities afforded by cell phone technology).

Nick Flynn

Richard Wilbur

Calling into the show from near the end and the prime of their respective careers, guest poets Richard Wilbur and popular memoirist Nick Flynn shared their complementary drives as students, readers, writers and performers.

First published in 1947, Wilbur as poet (The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems; Things of This World, 1956), children’s book author, prolific translator and collection editor, could not overemphasize the power of outspoken, unabashed delivery, reminding writers that “poetry began as song.” Perhaps a natural sensitivity, given the National Book and T.S. Eliot Awards-winner's work as French translator and librettist on the Leonard Bernstein 1963 musical production of Tartuffe, which yielded numerous actors’ interpretations of his interpretation of Moliere’s comedy--an experience he found uniformly enjoyable, as opposed to the translation process, which Richard found both “slavish and lively”. For a taste of the Nobel Laureate’s own work, enjoy Wilbur’s reading from the 1994 Riverwood Poetry Festival:

Part of a generation of longer-lived writers like the recently-passed Adrienne Rich, Wilbur, now 91, is philosophical about his remaining output, referring to his latest collection, Anterooms (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010) and his June 2 appearance at this summer’s Sunken Garden Poetry Festival probably his last. Wilbur prefers to pull back before giving a disappointing showing, either in print or before the microphone. The video below adapts Canadian rock trio Rush's affecting lamentation on the inevitable transition from virtuosity to the Void:

Interestingly, Ralph and Colin observed how, of all forms of writing, poetry’s intellectually and physically compact character confers a rare and intimate immortality.

For instance, Ralph confessed to often keeping small pieces in his wallet to re-read when in need of support. Of continued utility is Wilbur's "A Wedding Toast," which Ralph has had many opportunities to share with nervous fathers-of-the-bride (Ralph closes the program with a reading of his similarly-themed "Lightning Bugs" from Ferrying). McEnroe attested to his own obsessive muttering of the line “fresh linen for the backs of thieves” from “Love Calls Us To Things of This World” (1963’s The Poems of Richard Wilbur).

The line’s paradoxical generosity is mirrored in the work of Indian poet Reddy Shankreti, who challenges the reader in his 2011 collection Voyager (University of California Press) by using the figure of Kurt Waldheim--one-time UN Secretary General and former Nazi--to highlight the moral complexity of being human.

A poetry instructor at Green Haven Prison for many years, Ralph believes similar exercises, such as Colin's and other's gleefully defiant competitions to write poetry based on Homeland Security’s newly-released list of terrorism “trigger” words (scroll here for the complete list) are further ways where poetry can serve to examine ethical issues by divorcing them from emotionally-controlling contexts.

Context regarding the craft of poetry, itself, is a different matter for Nick Flynn, whom, while informally serving as an “ambassador” for poetry to the mainstream due to the success, in particular, of his memoirs The Ticking is the Bomb and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (2010, 2004, Norton, respectively) spoke on learning not just how to write it, but about its history and feeling privileged to have studied with older practitioners like Allen Dugan as an aid to “finding your tribe” within the field. The PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award-winning author of three poetry collections, including The Captain Asks For a Show of Hands and Some Ether (Graywolf, 2011, 2000, respectively) will be reading this evening from 7 to 9 pm at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford as part of the Riverwood Poetry Festival. If you can't make it, here's his reading of "Haiku (failed)" from The Captain Asks:

Wary of his perceived “coolness” by mainstream culture, given that the majority of poets work in obscurity, Flynn expressed a mild disorientation--in contrast to Wilbur’s delight--regarding seeing his efforts filtered through others' performances. Previewing re-enactments of episodes from his life in the forthcoming Julianne Moore/Robert DeNiro feature adapted from Another Bullshit Night “can be an eerie experience.” See how faithful the production of Being Flynn is for yourself here:

The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival began June 1-3 at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington and continues on Wednesdays through August 1. Graced in past seasons with readings by Billy Collins, Maxine Lumin, Grace Paley and other celebrated poets, Sunken Garden has been regaling audiences with verse and music among the garden's fragrant blooms for twenty years and offers workshops and opportunities for one-to-one discussions with poets. Learn about Theodata, Sunken Garden's new online journal here. Here's a sampling from the current season:

Ralph joins Antoinette Brim, Randal Horton and Doug Anderson this Sunday, June 24, from 2 to 4 pm in reading poetry of social justice at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center as part of the Riverwood Poetry Festival, a four-day celebration which began June 21, now in its fourth year, taking place in several sites throughout the Hartford area. Other participants, including Maggie Kearney, Sonya Huber, Walter Butts, Janet Bowdan and Tony Fusco, round out a program incorporating readings by up-and-comers, live music and a panel discussion with poetry journal editors. Click here for full details; email: riverwoodpoetry@yahoo.com.