RICK BLUM | Questions of Poetic Character
Am I a less learned man if I do not revel in the poetic outpourings of Dickenson , or Whitman , or capital-phobic E . E . Cummings ? If Ezra Pound ’ s " In a Station of the Metro " elicits but a befuddled shrug ? Or if I only last through Way Six of Wallace Stevens ’ " Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird " before bowing to disinterest ? Does that make me a literary troglodyte ? A congregant in a sanctuary of simpletons ? A poseur as I pen these very words ?
But which of these lords or ladies of letters , I ask , could recite from memory the complete lyrics to the Marcels ’ version of " Blue Moon ", including every bom ba bom bom , dang a dang dang , and ding a dong ding ? Or , conjure up the starting nines of the ’ 63 , ’ 78 and ‘ 96 Yankees at will ? Or , without a moment ’ s hesitation , re-enact a colloquy to discern " Who ’ s on First "?
None , I suspect .
So I ’ m comfortable being ticketed a shallow sort , for choosing to settle in with Ogden Nash on a dank winter ’ s day , or the eminently scrutable Billy Collins anytime , or , even , when the mood calls for a touch of inscrutability , a James Tate tall tale concealed in a thick anthology of contemporary poetry . Likewise , I have no intention of foreswearing limericks that cleverly accost the comfortable , or rhyming couplets that delight mighty mites and major domos alike .
I will , however , continue to shun those pastiches of plagiarism known as found poems . I mean , even a troglodyte can recognize the essentiality of original voice in poetic compositions – even if he writes a micro-essay and insists on passing it off as a poem .
8 LIGHT