Human life without some form of poetry is not human life but animal existence.

Randall Jarrell

**************************

                                             

Breaking News Washington, 9/7/23 (Huffington Post)

POLITICSLGBTQMILITARYTOMMY TUBERVILLE

Sen. Tommy Tuberville Says He's Worried About Sailors Reciting Poetry

 The Alabama senator tried to defend his widely criticized blocking of military promotions with anti-"woke" blather.

By Ron Dicker

Sep 7, 2023, 07:08 AM EDT

|Updated 5 hours ago

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Wednesday that poetry is proof the Navy needs to root out “wokeness.” 

“We’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker,” he said to Laura Ingraham on Fox News Wednesday.

The right-wing senator has been widely criticized for blocking military promotions to protest the Pentagon’s policy of supplying service members with paid leave and travel costs to get an abortion in another state.

Tuberville attempted to defend his monthslong blockade by fighting the culture war on “wokeness.”

“Right now we are so woke in the military, we are losing recruits right and left,” he said. “Secretary [Carlos] Del Toro of the Navy he needs to get to building ships; he needs to get to recruiting; and he needs to get wokeness out of our Navy. We’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker. It is absolutely insane the direction that we’re headed in our military.”

Tuberville did not specify the instance of Navy personnel reciting poetry on a ship. But he was likely referring to a spoken-word event on the USS Gerald Ford hosted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Supporting Sailors (G.L.A.S.S.) association in November. Tuberville previously griped about a nonbinary junior officer praising that gathering.

**************************

Coming on Sunday September 24, 2023 at 1PM

Dear Friends, Readers and Enthusiasts,

Don't miss 

Ed Coletti's Festival of the Longer Poem which will be our final event for this year at Sunday September 24th from 1:00 -3:00 PM on the outdoor stage at Cafe Frida Gallery located in the Santa Rosa Art District at  300 S. A St, Santa Rosa, CA 95401.   

Here is the reading order of truly great poets this time reading one poem for up to 10 minutes.

• Ed Coletti reading and hosting 
• Jonah Raskin SSU Professor Emeritus and writer extraordinaire
• Elizabeth Herron current Sonoma County Poet Laureate
• Robert DeLillo who shares in the depth of his famous cousin
• Greg Randall bringing us a new book
•  
•  Intermission
•  
• Avotcja  back here from Oakland
• Dave Seter environmental engineer, poet and translator
• Gwynn O'Gara former county poet laureate
• Pat Nolan who never fails to surprise and impress
• Marty LeReynard lively and once again with us from Great Britain

You might also be interested in arriving at Noon or before to have lunch and listen to jazz.

I look forward to sharing this final event with you on the 24th!

Cheers,

Ed Coletti

********************************************************

Correspondence With Sandra Anfang 

Following my having discovered her poem on Larry Robinson's site, I contacted Sande in Petaluma.

First here's Sande's poem

**********************

The Hatred of Poetry

I read it in the Times

so you know it’s true:

a poet writes a book of poems

about why the masses hate poetry.

I ponder hatred;

surely it’s too strong a word

for the random tickle,

the mind’s unravel

something we ought to welcome

when analysis of the latest 

police shooting glazes our ears.

Fear not—gentle reader

think of it as the latest staycation

an interlude of dreaming

at the kitchen table

mind in the stars

while cats trace figure eights

between a plate of crusts

and the cup of cold coffee

separating you

from all you think

you need to do today.

- Sandra Anfang

_______________________________________________
PoetryLovers mailing list
PoetryLovers@lists.sonic.net
https://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/poetrylovers

*****************

Hi Sande

I want to tell you how perfect your poem “the hatred of poetry” is! And it’s a perfect illustration of poetry in action. I’ve done a lot of thinking about why people say they hate Poetry. They don’t understand Poetry. I think it goes back to education. In England, there is far less distaste for Poetry, because Poetry is part of the language. In our educational system, school teachers, who have been brought up without Poetry either don’t teach it or at least they don’t understand it and pass on false impressions based upon such as John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Trees.”

Perhaps the emphasis in the schools should be not so much on creative “writing“ so much as creative “reading”

Instruct the student in class to read a poem to themselves, and then state their impressions. Have them read it a second time and ask them to give their further impressions. After a third reading, they might be able to explicate the poem now lodged in their souls. This way, the teacher learns along with her students. This also is a good illustration of the Buddhist concept of “beginner’s mind.”Older students (aren’t we all?) might benefit from this poem of mine.

Thank you so much  for yours, Sande,

Ed

 

                    Read Three Times

 

Charge yourself

to read a poem

three times at each

single session.

 

Discover depths

of richer substance

gifted you and other

readers over time.

 

Regard how the poet’s

one rare quatrain

calls to attention

all souls marking time.

                    - Ed Coletti

 **************************

Hi Ed,

Thanks for the thoughtful note. I agree with many of your views on why people “hate” poetry, though I think it’s more that they fear it. The way it was presented in high school in my era (late sixties) and before was to explicate its “true meaning” and cram that meaning down students’ throats. We were never asked for our own responses to a poem, except in one rare class for me. I actually started writing that year--Honors English 11. I enjoyed reading your poem, “Read Three Times and Call a Poet.” I enjoy your wry humor and dead-on aim.

I often write are poetic poems in an attempt to draw a bead on the mystery of poetry and how we blow life into words like glassblowers.

By the way, do you know Billy Collins’ poem, “Introduction to Poetry?” It’s one of my favorites. 

Enjoy and be well,

Sande

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

   - Billy Collins

Sande, Yes I know and love the Collins poem. My first college text was John Ciardi’s HOW Does a Poem Mean .

Cheers, 

Ed

******************

...and now something completely different:

Read - Pulled From a Dockside Barrom