Busboys and Poets featured a reading by their poet-in-residence Derrick Weston Brown in honor of his first collection of poetry, Wisdom Teeth.

I had not heard Brown before the reading. I never went to the open mics nor the slams he hosted. In fact, when I looked online for some of his poems, I felt pretty sure that I would not like his writing.

Much of the reason for this is cultural differences – differences at least partly resulting from race. I am white. I was raised by white people who primarily inculcated me in the cultural specifics white American and Anglo-European culture. The culture of the poetry at Busboys and Poets is inextricably tied to Washington, DC’s African-American history and culture.

The disconnect for me is that, for me, poetry is always most deeply informed by the written word. By the physical page and appearance of the words upon it (my parents each spent much of my childhood reading in silence, especially during difficult or upsetting times, and this made my ties to the written word almost unavoidable). Slam poetry, hip hop inflected poetry – these are forms more deeply informed by the oral word.

But…

Once I was able to flip through Wisdom Teeth, I loved it. Really loved it.

Brown’s poetry is still intimately and predominantly informed by oral culture, but also by the formal techniques of the written word. A series of poems near the beginning about a group of slaves in the American south is especially affecting in its combining of colloquial language and oral traditions with the contemporary forms of written poetry.

Of course, now the question becomes, do I like his poetry only because it touches on the poetic traditions of “my” (read: white, European) culture?

Such tricky ethical, philosophical, and sociological questions aside, check out Wisdom Teeth.

The poet Kim Rosen suggested (among other things) making thirty copies of poem you, in particular, love. Then, to read that poem to someone in your life and hand them a copy.

It’s a wonderful idea, though I will probably never do it (I am too non-confrontational, too uncomfortable with salesmanship). I like it because it gives the people who receive it a very manageable way to enter into the world of poetry and forces them to look at it and try to understand and appreciate. They are forced to this because they know that this poem is uniquely meaningful to the giver.

Should someone actually attempt this, I would hope that it would not just be something by Robert Frost or a sonnet by Shakespeare, but something that digs down deeper into the world of poetry.

And now that I have pondered this further, I think I will do it. I will bring a copy of a poem by Cavafy to my Dungeons & Dragons group (I named my character after him, so the idea of a poem by Cavafy will have some meaning for my compatriots) and maybe even embarrass my significant other by handing some out to her fellow vendors at Eastern Market. Or maybe I will forget or lose my nerve and not do it after all.

Though for me, National Poetry Month is something to be celebrated, however flawed, others see the flaws as far outweighing whatever positives may exist.

Charles Bernstein, for example, is very put out by the whole spectacle. I cannot disagree with his arguments, either. He posits that NPM (National Poetry Month) becomes a means to promulgate the safest and most milquetoast poems. Even worse, that the Poetry Foundation (which is behind NPM) does not actually promote poems and poets during April, but merely the idea of poetry. In general, the critique is well worth reading and I suggest you click on it and read.

Nonetheless, though I tend to agree with every word Bernstein writes in that article, I still treasure NPM. Not because the Poetry Foundation takes out full page ads, filled with the names of their sponsors rather than poems and poets. But because of what people unaffiliated with them do with it. Independent bookstores rush to bring in poets for readings. Even the big chain bookstores will have enterprising managers put books of poetry on the tables near the entrance. So what if the books in question are by Billy Collins or (heaven forfend) Jewel. It’s still poetry. People like me make a conscious effort to support poetry even more than usual this month. Isn’t that worth something? No one loves NPM for what the establishment does with it, but what individual people, libraries, teachers, students, and bookstore managers do with it.

I myself will not do as much with it as I should. But damn it, I will celebrate it.

April is National Poetry Month, but frankly, you should already have known that. Certainly, you should be thinking of how you will be supporting poetry in your community.

I took advantage of my local Borders closing to purchase Robert Hass’ collection Time and Materials. I figured that I would bring it when he reads on May 21. Things are a little tight, so this may be my sole poetry purchase for the month (or maybe not – I’ve got some Barnes & Noble gift cards I haven’t tapped out yet, plus store credit at my favorite local used bookstore, Capitol Hill Books).

Naomi Shihab Nye is reading at the Folger in a week and I don’t like to miss those – especially during National Poetry Month. The next day, Language Poet Kit Robinson is reading at Bridge Street Books. To be quite honest, if it’s a choice between the two, I would probably prioritize Kit Robinson.

Maybe I’ll use my B&N gift card to pick up something by Nye (since Robinson is reading at Bridge Street Books, it seems downright shameful to show up with a book purchased at a chain bookstore). While it won’t help me support either of these poets, I could check the nifty poetry room at Capitol Hill Books and trade in my credit for something poetic.

Sandra Beasley responded to my criticism of Mary Karr’s appearance. It made me wonder if I had been too harsh. Specifically, whether my own take down of  Karr was any different from her take down of Armantrout?

Perhaps it was. Part of my response was purely literary. I found her poetry to be quotidian and uninspiring (though isn’t saying that a repeat of the same behavior by her that angered me and the same behavior by me that has caused me to question my judgment?).

I think a lot of my frustration was caused by how much I enjoyed listening to Van Clief-Stefanon’s poetry and her remarks and how much a very little of Karr goes a long way – and there was a lot of Karr relative to Van Clief-Stefanon.

So, in short, my attempt to re-evaluate whether I was fair or not to Karr has resulted in me basically repeating all my complaints. Not really a successful effort after all.

In an effort to make up for that failure, let me end by suggesting that, at the very least, many (or most or all) of my criticisms of Mary Karr could quite fairly be directed at me.

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon’s reading at the Folger Shakespeare Library was wonderfully done, but also read beautifully on the page. With the rise of performance poetry, slam poetry and the like, we have seen the rise of poetry that doesn’t hold up well on the written page (if you don’t believe me, take a song and write it out  on a page and see if it’s as good on paper as it is being performed; chances are, unless you decided to write out a Leonard Cohen song, it’s looks like a poor piece of poetry when written out, however beautiful it was when sung).

While at that reading, I purchased her most recent collection, ]Open Interval[.

One of the poems she read was called “Bop: The North Star.” Reading it on the page, it was far more complex and rich than the reading implied. Lots of formal play and grammatical games. For example, check out the last stanza:

At the prison at Auburn I cross the yard. Inmates whet tongues against
my body: cement–sculpted–: poised for hate–: pitch
compliments like coins:–(wade)–their silver slickening–(in the water)–:
uncollected change. A guard asks Think they’re beautiful? Just wait
til they’re out here stabbing each other. Oh, Harriet, the stars
throw down shanks–: teach the sonnet’s a cell–: now try to escape–

Read it out loud and you can hear how it might read gorgeously. But also compare that to the written word and notice what a purely oral transmission might miss.

I have loved these sorts of grammatical ever since I discovered Adrienne Rich in high school and noticed the way she would bring the reader to a startling halt by putting an extended break (ten spaces or so) within a line. The strategy would stop a reader even more than a simple line break.

Van Clief-Stefanon also recognizes the power of this sort of play to force the reader to stop and think, but never at the expense of a readable, enjoyable line or poem. Again, the comparison to her reading compatriot, the memoirist cum poet, Mary Karr, and her formally simple, narrative poems works strongly in Van Clief-Stefanon’s favor.