Icarus Also Flew

Poet for Hire

I just returned from a week long photography conference in New Orleans. One night, sometime around midnight, we came across this poet who had set up shop in front of a bar. For a suggested donation of $10-20 he would compose a poem on any theme you suggested. There was a line and a 30-minute wait to get your poem. Sometimes it's easier to make a living doing what you love than we let ourselves believe.

Here's to the poets that sustain our language, and at times, also show us how to live. 

Poems for the People

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
     yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
 

These lines in William Carlos Williams' poem Asphodel are one of the principal reasons I make art - also, why I read poetry. The fact that they were written by a man who also practiced medicine his entire career underscores their significance. 

However, one of the problems with poetry is that reading it oneself can at times be a shadow of the proper experience - much like looking at Caravaggio paintings in a textbook. Poems for the People is the cure to this. A periodic podcast highlighting some of the best poetry, Poems for the People are read out loud by my good friend Mischa Willett. He is an accomplished poet and is perhaps the most gifted reader of poetry I have ever heard (with the possible exception of the poet Li-Young Lee). On several occasions I've had the chance to compare his readings to readings by the authors themselves, and lets just say that many of them would do well to hire Mr. Willett to teach them how to read their own work. 

If you enjoy poetry, and especially if you don't, I encourage you to check out Poems for the People. 

P.S. Elizabeth Lucy Conway wrote a great little piece about the experience of teaching this poem called: Required Reading: The Medicine of Poetry. Check it out.