Good Morning, Everyone:
No photo here this time, because we’re not celebrating just one poet, but all poets everywhere, throughout history. This is National Poetry Month here in the United States, where people have become newly aware of and grateful for poetry during our Corona-virus (hate even saying the word) lockdowns.
Reports are that, among the book-buying public, poetry sales are up, which is such good news. Poetry, as readers of this column surely know, heals the soul. It’s the best medicine we can get for the ailing souls we have right now.
Although I usually don’t recommend specific poets in April but rather give you the usual exhortation to search out poems – on your own shelves, in libraries and bookstores, this time I will.
So many people responded to the beautiful poem by the young Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb,” that she read at Joe Biden’s Inaugural ceremony it was as if they had never heard a poem before.
Others were inspired to research inaugural poems of the past. Here we have had six in total, but I won’t tell you more than that, because that’s your first assignment today. Look them up. If you’re still young, you won’t remember any, but if you’re as old as I am, you’ll recall all six.
Now, in addition to those, for the first time I will recommend some books of poetry that both startled and excited me this year. They are both personal and political – no surprise, because, as many, particularly feminists, have said, “The personal is political.”
Startling was a chapbook by someone I had never heard of: Jesse Bertram, winner of a prize by Rattle magazine. Called “A Plumber’s Guide to Light,” it contains strong, vital poems about working-class life – a theme often missing in the high-falutin poems we were treated to in school. Some of us later found Philip Levine on our own, but he was a shocking and wonderful surprise. I won’t give you any of the poems here, because nothing should deter you from seeking them out on your own.
The second recommendation for today is one by our old favorite, Martin Espada, whose early career was as a tenant lawyer. His new book, Floaters has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and is well-deserved. I’m sure your local independent bookstore – if you’re lucky enough to still have one – has it in stock. Otherwise, you can probably get it online.
So that’s what it is for today. Celebrate by finding poems to read on your own or aloud to someone else. Soon, if we behave ourselves, get vaccinated, wear our masks, wash our hands and stay socially distant, we may actually have live readings to go to again. I can hardly wait – both to go to them and to do them myself, as I used to. I miss having audiences and being part of audiences. They are among the greatest pleasures in life.
–IRENE WILLIS
POETRY EDITOR