Time for Some Cowboy Poetry

Mike Logan is a cowboy poet--one of the best. I happened across this poem and knew I'd want to share it with my Poetry Parade spectators.

2010 Poetry Parade: Day 26

Wrecks
by
Mike Logan


Well, I’ve seen some wrecks ahorseback
An’ quite a few with cars,
An’ I’ve even seen the carnage
Of some awful wrecks in bars.
But the worst wrecks in my mem’ry
Was the ones a comin’ on
When there come a perfumed letter
That started off "Dear John."

From Laugh Kills Lonesome & Other Poems (Buglin’ Bull Press, 1990)
Used with the author’s permission.

Read more about Mike and his poetry here.

It's National Poetry Month!

I know April 1st means April Fool's Day to many...or two weeks till taxes are due...or perhaps the advent of spring cleaning. But for me, April 1st means the beginning of National Poetry Month. I've celebrated for the past eight years by sending out a poem a day to anyone who wanted one. But last year's "Poetry Parade" gave birth to a daily poetry venture--a website called http://www.yourdailypoem.com/. A new poem is posted on the website each day, and subscribers enjoy a bit of private commentary which never appears on the site. I've been delighted and astounded at the support the site has found. Now, in this ninth year of my Springtime Parade of Poems, I've decided to post the selections here on my blog as well to allow for some discussion. I always get a ton of comments on the parade selections (ranging from "That's the dumbest poem I ever read!" to "I want this on my tombstone!") and some have suggested it would be fun if everyone got to see those comments and respond with their own, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm not an early riser, so don't expect to find anything to comment on before 9 AM!

Here's the kick-off for the parade this year--a very funny, very clever piece from Wisconsin poet Bruce Dethlefsen:

Mineral Expectations by Bruce Dethlefsen

limestone awfully lonesome since my father’s gone and miss our little talcs and conversations how I marbled at the strength of this good man a grocer who would sandstone much all day that he developed varicosities in both his legs and never once complained even though I took his love for granite I can still recoal his exact words and sediments it slate for him he’d say too late but you shale mica difference in this world he’d point at me and shake his finger of quartz he understood and wished for me not just the same old schist but a future that pyrites would be mined and mined alone (Something Near the Dance Floor, Marsh River Editions, 2003) Used with the author's permission. To see the full posting, go here. Comments, anyone?

Poetry, Take Two

In a survey sponsored by the Poetry Foundation a few years back, researchers discovered the following:

• 94% of Americans have read poetry at some point in their life, but only 15% read it consistently throughout their life.
• Almost 85% say poetry is hard to understand.
• Almost 81% say poetry is boring.
• Yet more than 70% say poetry helps you appreciate the world around you.

I'm going to connect the dots here and suggest that, based on these statistics, if people understand a poem, chances are they'll enjoy it. That's the premise upon which I based the launch of Your Daily Poem, a website that went live June 1st with the sole purpose of presenting uplifting, easy to understand poetry to people who were not predisposed to like it. And to paraphrase and repurpose Sally Field's worn but fitting cliche, "They like it! They really like it!"

I am tickled pink...or fuschia, if we want to be more poetic....to report that, four months after its birth, the number of subscribers to Your Daily Poem has septupled (is that a word?), poets published and un are submitting wonderful work on an almost daily basis, and people are passing around featured poems like juicy gossip. It's enough to make a poetry lover giddy.

Why bother, you may ask, or who cares? It comes down to this: life's hard most days--especially these days. Whether you're a young mother struggling to make ends meet, a working stiff trying to hang onto your job, a retiree worried about health and Social Security, or a corporate tycoon just having a bad day, we all need something to lift our spirits, make us laugh, stretch our imagination, take us away, or resurrect a fond memory. Poetry can do all that. But for too many of us, poetry got a bad name because someone made us study something awful in a classroom, or we opened a Revered Poetry Journal and were befuddled, repulsed, or bored by what we found inside, or we went to a reading and were embarrassed, offended, or bored by what we heard.

So this is my plea: give poetry a second chance. If you think you hate it, go to Your Daily Poem and click around in the archives. Read Ellen Bass's account of a mid-life couple smooching at an airport. Read the condemnation of little girl's beauty pageants on July 21st ("the stench of pink:" what a great line!). Read about an Elvis sighting in the peanut butter aisle at Shoprite, or the bliss of a perfectly ripe avocado, or the smell of oregano in a grandmother's kitchen, or the feel of your beloved's curls against your pillow.

Believe me, poetry is alive and well at YDP and it's not boring. It's heartrending, and hilarious, and touching, and titillating and--big bonus!--not even remotely connected to health insurance! Come discover poets from around the world whose work will definitely help you appreciate the world around you--one wonderful word at a time.