Do you like books?
The covers, pages, signatures, glue-ings, and sew-ings that have been around from Dante's time to Dickinson's?
Or do you like readings?
The platform that has launched a million neo-Beats, and a million more Mike Myerses from So I Married an Axe Murderer, and a million and a half more def poets?
The Bowery Poetry Club in New York . . . The Green Mill in Chicago . . . The Make Out Room in San Francisco . . .
Or maybe you like readings but without all that beer and chatter?
So you listen to old Carl Sandburg records, Voice of the Poet CDs, and mp3's from Ubuweb or Pennsound or the Poetry Foundation or Poetry Speaks?
But maybe you still want to be "present," so maybe you'll show up for HTMLgiant's streaming readings series?
Maybe you, like Sina Queryas over at Harriet, like to listen to poems and podcasts on your iPod, but you actually like to read poems on your iPod, too?
Or maybe you have a Kindle?
Don't you wish there was a better selection for poetry on the Kindle? Don't you wish someone would take the e-reader as an art form like Jackson MacLow did with the reading? What about the iPhone? The poetry app?
(Speaking of Harriet--sweet Harriet--do you want to read Amber Tamblyn's poem for Brittany Murphy? Maybe you like to read poems on the computer like this? You spend a lot of time over at No Tell Motel, then? Do your eyes hurt?)
As long as you're at the computer, maybe you're into animated poems, or maybe you want to take a poetry tour of Chicago or of Washington D.C.?
Maybe you just recite poems to yourself at home in the shower?
Or maybe you like your poems on bus? Scrawled on bathroom doors?
In movies?
From Twitter?
On TV?
Over the phone?
Poetry is everywhere and--despite what the NEA says--we're reading, listening, watching it all the time. It's a poetry golden age, if you know how to take it.