[New-Poetry] "wet socks and gin before breakfast"

[David Graham]

I just taught my first class of the semester in my Poetry Aloud course, and
we talked a bit about why Presidents might have poets at their inaugural
ceremonies.  The long view would be that it's for the same reason that so
many people reach for poetry at weddings & funerals; and why so many
religious traditions ask people to memorize and recite prayers; and why, for
that matter, religious texts are often cast in poetic form.

Poetry is not only allied with music; it's the perfect form for ritual and
ceremony as well.

We'll listen in class on Thursday to Elizabeth Alexander's poem, if I can
find & figure out how to download it by then.  Meanwhile, we also listened
to Robert Frost & Maya Angelou, and talked a little about the differences &
similarities.  


On 1/20/09 9:39 AM, "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:

> Chris Lott wrote:
>> And why not readings of the latest in home plumbing and
>> crotch-cleaning and demos of gluten free cooking and coffee table
>> construction? We can have financial analysts reading formulae
>> regarding annual variable interest and tax effects. There's no end to
>> the excitement of the answers to that stimulating question: why not
>> something else?
>> 
>> c
> I was making the point that poets, like mathematicians but unlike the
> people you mention, are for the intelligent few, not for moron events
> like the inauguration.  So no one should bewail the fact that poets
> don't always get a place at events like inaugurations.
> 
> --Bob G.
> 

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/

Poetry Library:
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