The current issue of Poetry (January 2012) marks the 100th year for the journal.  It is a remarkable issue, which includes a review of a revised edition of the letters of T. S. Eliot (by Adam Kirsch) and an essay by Penelope Pelizzon ("Potsherds and Arrowheads") ,  examining some of the poems that have appeared there over the years.
     This month, too, I got notice of an acceptance from a little known journal, The Deronda Review, wherein the editor makes some comments which I find wonderfully insightful.  These I would like to share.
      In Pelizzon's essay, she is delighted to find poems by Louise Bogan and Langston Hughes among the "thirties bric-a-brac."  Poetry is the foremost poetry journal in this country, even after a century.  And it is fitting that Eliot is so perceptifvely discussed by Mr. Kirsch.  Eliot changed the direction of poetry in this country, he and his friend Ezra Pound.   I would argue that they did poetry no favor.
      Now we come to the comment I would share from Esther Cameron, editor of Deronda Review.  She laments the absence of lay readers.  Lay readers?  Where are they?  Is it only poets who read other poets?  And if that is so, cannot the blame be placed squarely on the shoulders of T. S. Eliot? 
     And yet, and yet . . . .
     When I first was introduced to "the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" as a college freshman, I was bewildered.  And even after the poem was explained, I could feel little sympathy for this ineffectual character, so full of inaction and self-pity.  And yet, when  in graduate school  I heard Allan Tate read the poem, I finally listened with some appreciation.  Yes, we all should be able to hear mermaids singing. 
      If you are near a library that takes Poetry, seek out the January copy and enjoy this very special issue.
     Let there be Lay Readers among us.   Thanks for listening.   
                  Nancy

Happy New Year!  Hope you had a good Christmas.  So far this January, I've been privileged to attend three different writers groups in East Tennessee--Night Writers, Poetry Society of Tennessee,NE, and the Lost State Writers Guild, which is new to me.  They met in Kingsport for lunch, and so I got to go.  (I don't like to drive at night, but I do have an appointment with an eye doctor to consider my options.)  That was delightful.  Two of the readers I already knew from the PST-NE.  Which brings me to something that's been on my mind for years: How to honor a poet.
     In the 1980s, at the MLA convention, I attended a session intended to honor Elizabeth Bishop.  I didn't know her poetry very well at that time, but I wanted to learn more.  She was there, but she was not reading.  She was in the audience.  Instead, professors were reading papers analyzing her poetry.  If I remember correctly, there was even a musical piece to honor her.  But apparently, she didn't feel honored.  She left in the middle of the session.  She simply walked out.
     Compare that to the first time I ever heard Gwendolyn Brooks read.  It was at Knoxville College in the 1970s.  My friend and I were two of the few white faces in the audience at Coleman Auditorium.  The place was packed.  But here's the thing.  When Gwendolyn Brooks walked on stage, she got a standing ovation before the even opened her mouth.  She was already elderly and somewhat feeble, even then.  But she read so beautifully.  I never knew how to read "We Real Cool" until I heard her.  And she told stories.  In that poem, there's a line that goes: "we jazz June."  She said she heard some critic say this referred to a gang rape of a young woman named June.  She laughed.  "I was just jazzing up the month of June--no moonlight and roses, please." 
      I have since learned much more about Elizabeth Bishop's poetry, enought to admire it.  I have heard her read, albeit on tape rather than in person.  (Her voice is rather flat, surprisingly.)  But apparently she shared Ms. Brooks' attitude toward the critics.
     How to Honor a Poet:  Don't analyze.  Just Listen!