Poetry Hut Blog
Jayne Cortez and the Firespitters

Poetry News:

1. — There’s this idea he was a stern, reclusive, hard man, but, in fact, he was great company, he loved gossip and he’s not the Ted Hughes that people have in their imaginations at all —
2. — Kerouac, baseball and Denver —
3. — Poet Thomas Sayers Ellis will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, for Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences —
4. — Winners of The Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation —
5. — Poet Jayne Cortez makes heady music with Ornette Coleman sidemen —
6. — Hopkins Marks 30th Anniversary of ‘Callaloo’ —
7. — I have this crazy idea that if (Samuel Taylor) Coleridge were a woman born in the middle of the 20th century, born in northern Maine without an opium addiction, he might be Dorianne Laux —

I think if a poet is going to write about something they haven’t experienced, either as a persona poem or not (I’m thinking here of mental illness, psych hospitals & other physical incarceration specifically in this case but it can also apply to sexism, racism etc i guess) then it is not something to be taken lightly & should be approached with vigilance, for it is a difficult thing to make a poem ring true 100% (in any case) & indeed at the worst, these attempts can meander into the cheap and the exploitative.

That being said, I think you should go for it. I’d be the last person to tell someone what s/he should write about. Because that makes me mad! I have no problem with poets writing persona poems etc — I love them. Ai is one of my favorite poets.

One should examine the motivation(s) for writing such a poem, however, I think. Because the reader can’t. (Though sometimes the poet’s motivation can be illuminated by the poem with more clarity than the poet is aware of! Or tragically misconstrued.) What do you think?

Anyway, have some ee cummings:

Humanity i love you

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you