I saw poetry butchered on a stage, chopped into pieces and tossed to the audience. I heard it gasped and struggled for breaths but no one came to its rescue. The onslaught trampled down century by century, smearing the names of poets, destroying the pleasure, the intrigue, the wonder, the art that is poetry.
The butcher asked for audience participation. The audience participated. The butcher asked for sing-along. The audience sang along. The butcher bowed humbly, thanked everyone for their undivided attention. The audience clapped as the lifeblood of poetry spilled onto the floor as red as the carpet.
It is finished. The stain on the butcher’s sleeve is all but noticeable. The stain on poetry is spreading.
Your anger is good–and should be expressed.
But I think that fellow took aim at poetry, twanged his arrow into the air–and missed entirely. Not a butcher but a botcher.
Didn’t you see Poetry laugh in his face, get up and do a tap dance around him?
Oh, how the art is disrespected: it’s true. Ignoramuses (not muses) moider it daily. You’re right to be furious. I feel such fury too. But as both William Carlos Williams and James Broughton wrote, “Make light of it.” Not only find it funny–because at some level ignorance and disrespect *are* funny–but turn it into illumination. Let the lamp of your imagination look into it and see it as it is. And laugh at it.
Make light of it.
And yet it will survive.
Thank you, Steve and Jack. I needed your responses.