The song has not been heard in the
street or the market, nor sung in the
village or on the highway, nor flown
across the courthouse square since
before the time people remember.
The farmer in the field mourns a way
to end his day; the mother grieves
the absence of what quiets the child.
The singer stands mute, impotent; the
poet despairs with a shriveled soul.
Locked within the white tower, the
song has become a fictional shadow, a
parody of itself, preoccupied with its
form, its structure, its notes, its lack of
notes, its own self and none other.
It sits within its assigned cage, failing to
entertain a priestly few, a few deaf
priests, priests with bony fingers and
hearts of stone who poke and prod with
sticks but hear no music.
The poem above describes what I believe one of the ideas behind “Barbies at Communion” – to help celebrate the poetic in everyday life and in so doing help return poetry to people.
Over at TweetSpeak Poetry, we are helping Marcus Goodyear celebrate the publication of Barbies at Communion: and other poems. I reviewed the book of poems last week; we devoted a TweetSpeak poetry jam to Barbies on Tuesday. Check out how to win a signed copy of Barbies.
You can order the Kindle edition at Amazon, and the print edition at CreateSpace. You can also order a signed copy via the book’s web page through PayPal.
11 comments:
This is a wonderful picture of what happened to poetry. But poets like Marcus and parties like ours chip away at this. I like. (As Kathleen would say. :)
Theater and opera used to be for the common people-everybody. iLike :) It was a wild ride last night. Wooden roller coaster kind. Shake, rattle and roll.
High priests and bureaucratic structures . . . academics and impenetrable poetry: so, we make the music our own way, a tweet at a time, a line at time, a word at a time. iLike too.
lets have a tower jam
I love this and wish I had written it. :) It says so much. Without the song-- the music of the heart free to be whatever it desires-- what are we?
Poetry in an assigned cage. Ouch. That's a good concise image.
I remember a few years back attending the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, looking around at the 5000 or so people and realizing... Wait a minute, these are all of the poets in the country, all of the poetry publishers in the country, all of the poetry journals in the country, and most of the poetry readers. How did it get so incestuous?
That said, I can't hate on them too much because I love so much of what they do.
My favorite line by the way: "The farmer in the field mourns a way/ to end his day..."
I love the imagery in this poem -- and the beauty.
I am loving your poetry!
That was wonderful, Glynn. Your words flow.
Glynn,
I think I've been "deaf" for too long. Your thoughts, words, and specifically your poetry have inspired me to listen better to the "music" around us...
*applause*
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