Time for poetry, rural and urban

As I hope you know, April is National Poetry Month. I do not now, and were I to live forever would never, have enough time to discover and read even just the poetry I want to. I’ve learned I need to read lots of poetry to discover good to great poetry that matches, or expands, my taste, and often then I reread my better discoveries. Meanwhile, it seems as though more and more poets keep writing more and more poems and publishing poetry collections. There’s no way to keep up and I haven’t yet found a way to further limit my foci.

Just this morning I found mention of the works of Gary Lark in Getting By. Then I learned that a review of another of his volumes, Daybreak on the Water, includes favorable comparisons with Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It and with “John Prine, Ted Kooser, Edgar Lee Masters.” I have  a feeling my stack of unread books may remain so for awhile as others cut to the head of the line stack.

farmers market: rural or urban?

Photo by J. Harrington

Of all the fragmentations currently occurring among US, I am most troubled by the growing urban-rural divide. Back in the early 20th century, Edgar Lee Masters Spoon River Anthology (1915) was published. “The aim of the poems is to demystify rural and small town American life.” [wikipedia] More recently, actually, a century after Spoon River, Hick Poetics joined the club. [“There is no other assemblage of rural voices this broad; there is no other collection so fully exploring and celebrating Nowhere, USA.”] Much of what might be considered nature or eco poetry occurs in rural settings, although I have, and have read, an anthology of Urban Nature, Poems about Wildlife in the City. Urban and rural lives have much in common and depend on each other. Perhaps someone could remind our major political parties they are to serve the common good?

All of this has me wondering about the possibilities of using poetry and poems to help bridge our urban-rural divide, sort of like a “compare and contrast” using poems. First, I suppose, is the challenge of getting more people to read poetry and then we need to address the conundrums posed in today’s poem by insisting all answers include an option for “both, and.” Can we protect what we share as we fight about what divides US?

Questionnaire

By Charles Bernstein

Directions: For each pair of sentences, circle the letter, a or b, that best expresses your viewpoint. Make a selection from each pair. Do not omit any items.

1.a) The body and the material things of the world are the key to any   

       knowledge we can possess.

   b) Knowledge is only possible by means of the mind or psyche.

2.a) My life is largely controlled by luck and chance.

   b) I can determine the basic course of my life.

3.a) Nature is indifferent to human needs.

   b) Nature has some purpose, even if obscure.

4.a) I can understand the world to a sufficient extent.

   b) The world is basically baffling.

5.a) Love is the greatest happiness.

   b) Love is illusory and its pleasures transient.

6.a) Political and social action can improve the state of the world.

   b) Political and social action are fundamentally futile.

7.a) I cannot fully express my most private feelings.

   b) I have no feelings I cannot fully express.

8.a) Virtue is its own reward.

   b) Virtue is not a matter of rewards.

9.a) It is possible to tell if someone is trustworthy.

   b) People turn on you in unpredictable ways.

10.a) Ideally, it would be most desirable to live in a rural area.

    b) Ideally, it would be most desirable to live in an urban area.

11.a) Economic and social inequality is the greatest social evil.

    b) Totalitarianism is the greatest social evil.

12.a) Overall, technology has been beneficial to human beings.

    b) Overall, technology has been harmful to human beings.

13.a) Work is the potential source of the greatest human fulfillment.

    b) Liberation from work should be the goal of any movement for   

       social improvement.

14.a) Art is at heart political in that it can change our perception of   

       reality.

    b) Art is at heart not political because it can change only

       consciousness and not events.

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