Poetry, Underground

Spreading an appreciation for poetry isn't easy in a country that doesn't read as much as it used to and doesn't value the arts as much it should. Let's face it: unless Maya Angelou is on Oprah, we poets don't tend to register on the national consciousness. It's partly our fault. We can be a little out of touch what with our satchel bags and gratuitous berets (wink). We trumpeted the 2002 anthology Poets Against the War as if it were a movement--as if people were sitting around the water cooler saying,

"Did you see that poets have finally weighed in?"

"I did! You know, I so thought they'd be for it."

That's why I'm so bullish for my city, Washington DC, to emulate a move by Glasgow, Scotland last week and join a growing list of cities to scatter poems around their subway systems. It's a terrific idea: not only can a poem add some culture to a commute, but it can give poetry a larger place in a city's identity and consciousness. Plus, it's easy to find a poem that's compact enough to slide in over that ad for dental school.

London was the first city to sponsor subway poetry with its popular Poems on the Underground program, which has been running since 1986. Melbourne, Paris, Stuttgart, Barcelona, Athens, Moscow and Shanghai have adopted variations of it. As you New Yorkers know, New York has had its own Poetry in Motion program since 1992.

Like London's program, Poetry in Motion draws from contemporary poetry and the classics. Here's "A Little Tooth" by Thomas Lux:

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.

And an excerpt from Whitman's "Leaves of Grass":

STRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me,
why should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?

(You can read more recently featured poems here.)

As a regular on DC's metro system, I really wish we could get a little of this. DC isn't exactly a cultural hotbed. It's homogenous. People notice if the sleeves are rolled up on your dress shirt. One of my coworkers was genuinely surprised to learn that I loosen my tie before I get home. I mean, if a city ever needed a little Allen Ginsberg...

As a poet, I'm obviously more biased than your standard commuter, but as a Metro regular, I know the following things to be true:

1) Metro riders are usually very bored.
2) Being bored, they will read absolutely anything.

I have read and re-read the train evacuation instructions, the prohibited activities poster, and the stations on the metro map. Just this morning I read an ad for an air quality survey (I'm not sure why it needed an ad) and studied another for a novel called Just Too Good to Be True, trying to figure out why the word "true" was bright red (I couldn't). I'll often read a couple of pages of a novel over someone's shoulder. And when I've got a book or the paper, I know people are reading over mine.

Poetry on every Metro (or POEM) could be the next big DC thing. We could start with something political--you know, to ease 'em into it.

Comments

[gouge]

John, checkout sharkforum.org where our poet in residence Dr. Simone Muench introduces a new book of poetry each week - while your at it , read Simone's Lampblack &Ashes -you might want to discuss her work here.

[tinalouise]

It would seem apt to respond in poetry:

Poetic Opus

A world where poetry is king,
No such thing, as misunderstanding.
Not one poet would have more worth,
No one voice singing only one verse,
Not one of us louder or more prized,
Just a harmony of words, crafted by wise
Poetic altos, sopranos and tenors,
United and joined in poetic endeavours.

Metaphorical notes,
Subliminal tones,
Eloquent highs,
Deep mystical lows.

Crescendos of adjectives, nouns and verbs,
Symphonic creations, composed of words,
All the most important
Documents, deeds and laws
Scripted by poets in metaphors.
Declarations, declared delicately,
Advertising confined to the cemetery.
Pronouncements, pronounced eloquently,
Spin doctors burned as effigies.
Announcements, announced emphatically.
Catch phrases not fitting grammatically.
Eulogies written with poetic love,
Not long lost messages from beings above.
All delivery done with sincerity,
No lies to haunt eternity.

Truth, honour and respect,
For fellow world dwellers yet to be met.
Love, trust and understanding,
Clearly shared in poetic meanderings.
A world where ‘the word’ rules as it should,
Could only be birthed by those who could,
Weave words with the knowledge of the unity of us,
Mankind sharing through, a unique opus.
..................

Namaste,
Tina Louise

[JToast]

I am the Director of Poetry in Motion at the Poetry Society of America. The PSA partnered with the NYC MTA on Poetry in Motion for over 15 years. Unfortunately, the MTA canceled Poetry In Motion this past April and replaced it with a new program (in partnership with Columbia University) called "Train of Thought" that posts selections of prose from great thinkers in history, philosophy, science and literature.

The Poetry Society is trying to raise funds to buy space on city buses, but to replace the ads in the subway cars would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We still have Poetry in Motion in other cities across the country, including L.A. and Dallas. In fact, the PSA is trying to raise funds to expand Poetry in Motion to even more cites, and Washington D.C. is a priority!

Losing Poetry in Motion in New York city is a huge disappointment to the PSA and the millions of subway riders. In an article in The New York Times, Jim Dywer quotes Alice Quinn, the Executive Director of the PSA, as saying, "Poetry in Motion was a great gift to the city that the M.T.A. and Transit gave, and it was very deeply appreciated. There’s nothing that compares to the sustained exposure to an art.” You can find the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/nyregion/07about.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

To contact the PSA, please visit our website at www.poetrysociety.org.

[KillgoreTrout43]

Poetry is what keeps the human family together, at the Herat," level. It (good poetry) speaks to the trials and tribulations that we all experience and how we feel and react to these experiences. It's more than mere observation.
I think these programs are a great thing, especially in America, where our sense of the sublime and delicate has been blunted so by mass consumerism and a materialistic mentality. The "rat race."