[New-Poetry] Eratophobia: fear of poetry (& the end of Nat'l Poetry Slag Week)

[JforJames at aol.com]

The other night I drove down to Meriden CT where Lewis Turco gave a  reading. 
It was a small crowd in Meriden Public library but there were  a few of his 
old friends from Meriden where he grew up. That was nice to  see. He read a 
number of pieces that had to do with the town and/or  townfolk. He had just 
published a first volume of a Collected Poems, which  he said contained his 
unrhymed and free verse poetry. He was going to have  second volume released shortly 
containing the formal poetry. (I thought that was  a strange way to divide the 
body of one's work.)
 
He read this poem and said it was almost verbatim from a letter he  received.
Finnegan
--
 
ERATOPHOBIA: The Fear of Poetry
 
    --for Linda Sardella Boucher
 
"Dear Cousin," she wrote, "Thanks
for the books of poems. I must  admit
that I haven't opened them. It's a source
of pride to me to have a  poet in the family,
but I'm afraid I won't understand
 
"the poems and I'd feel stupid.
I fear I haven't opened them.
I must  admit I fear what lies in wait
between the covers: words that writhe,
that  hiss at me off the page,
 
"words that wriggle and won't hold still
to let me understand  them.
Weird, huh? I'll work at it. I'll work
to get beneath the covers, to  open one
in bed beneath the covers - they lie in wait
 
"beside me on the nightstand. I'll reach out
one night and grab one,  pull it underneath
the covers of my bed and, with a flashlight,
open it  and see the poems writhing,
hissing at me on the page I fear." 
 

--Lewis Turco, Book of Fears 
Other phobias, here...
_http://www.italianamericanwriters.com/Turco.html#poem1_ 
(http://www.italianamericanwriters.com/Turco.html#poem1) 



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