....on Poetry

Feb 5, 2004

"I'll give you extra credit if you'll go listen to a poetry reading by Nikki Giovanni after class tonight," Mr. Cesler said, handing back our first quiz of the semester. I thought the timing was rather strategic and downright clever, for the quizzes we were holding had yielded grades in the 30's and 40's for some--70's and 80's for others. I glanced down at my own miserable little grade and said to myself, "Color yourself there, girl," even though (by Mr. Cesler's own admission) poetry readings have been known to "make [students] vomit."

I have long known that poetry is not my love language... but surely I could endure an hour of poetry for a little extra credit, right? All I needed was to get enough out of it to write a small paper on.

I grabbed a piece of paper out of my notebook and trudged through the cold, dark night up the hill toward Van Meter Hall. As the sidewalk ended abruptly, I stepped down onto the pavement and was nearly run over by a girl in a toboggan. She was headed to the reading also and obviously knew where she was going, so I followed in her wake. Another girl was standing outside the auditorium handing out programs. "I guess I'll give you one," she said to me, after I had politely stood in line at length. You guess?? I was puzzled only briefly... as long as it took me to look at the paper. Make a difference now, it said. WKU chapter of Amnesty International--First meeting Wednesday at 7:00. Oh. There must be no "programs" at Events such as this. I quickly made my way into the auditorium.

Any hopes I had had about a small, demure "poetry reading" were soon diminished. Students in all shapes and forms and sizes and colors filled the auditorium from front to back in a matter of mere minutes. (Who listens to poetry?!?) I realized my mistake in choice of seating as soon as the Event began. Any extra credit I might have been able to gain was lost somewhere between the speakers way up at the front of the auditorium and my seat way back at the pole Samson (Delilah's) might have stood beside had he been there.

The speaker was introduced by a student, but most of her credentials were lost somewhere up near the ceiling ....all except for the fact that she's just been nominated for a grammy. Wow. A grammy nominee. At Western.

If the room had either been smaller or had had louder speakers, or if I had been closer to the speaker or had had an ability to read lips that I couldn't even see, I might've been able to squeeze a little extra credit out of the deal. My particular circumstances dissolved any such hopes very quickly. The dimmed lighting of the auditorium also took any and all possibilities of note-taking out of the equation as well as the speed with which Ms. Giovanni talked. The few words I did manage to jot down are not only cryptic but also highly illegible. But amazingly enough, I still managed to enjoy myself to an extent that I am marvelling at to this moment.

Although I missed making any in-depth interpretations of Ms. Giovanni's poetry, I did manage to make some general observations about poetry nonetheless. Poetry, it seems, no longer has a need to rhyme at any time as it did in the Days of my Childhood. It needs no thesis, no supporting evidence, no conclusion. It can be a series of short sentences, long sentences, or even just a list of things. A good poetry reading needs only a good rhythm, a little bounce, and a lot of gestures interlaced with lots of short anecdotes and humor to keep the audience's attention. I shall liken a poem to a small wisp of hair-- turned wig. All that is needed is a smidgen of an idea transformed into a lot of meaningful prattle. How else would you explain poems titled "Quilting a Black-eyed Pea," "In the Spirit of Martin," "The Feet," and "Twenty Reasons to Love Richard Williams"?

I'll have to admit Ms. Giovanni did an exceptional job at what I (the local expert) would consider to be a pretty good poetry reading. She did an amazing job at transitioning between poems while keeping the attention of her audience by using humor. She is an elderly African American who admittedly loves "blacks," but dislikes Oprah. She thinks Americans need to be more embarrassed about watching football on television than about Janet Jackson flashing a body part "that isn't even hers anyway." She believes there is life on Mars and thinks she would probably be arrested for being a "Martian sympathizer" should a Martian ever decide to visit Earth. And yes, America SHOULD be going to Mars because we know Mars won't be coming to us--we're crazy! So in the spirit of Martin Luther King (whom she admires and thinks would wear braids and have "Freedom" or "Vote" tattoed on his arm if he were still living), I would say Ms. Nikki Giovanni certainly does "have a dream..." another essential to being a good poet.
All in all, it was a rather entertaining presentation, although I will just have to say that listening to a poetry reading by one's own choice is one thing; to be forced to come up with a Nugget of Lasting Value for the purposes of grade preservation is quite another. I think I shall be quite content to leave poetry in the hands of those who are qualified to handle it.