I love mildly deceptive headlines. Although this column is meant to be about Poetry Month, I must begin with a little spring cleaning in the form of an apology for leaving out an important contributor to the cultivation and preservation of Brian Moore's novels, which seem doomed to retail exile in the forgotten kingdom ruled by the evil Wizard of OP.
Elizabeth Davis of the Hartford Public Library, Hartford, Conn., offered "a gentle reminder: when an author you love is OP, turn to your library for the possibility of reading those more obscure gems! I read your article two days after reading Nothing to Be Afraid Of by Julian Barnes. Brian Moore being one of his favorite writers as well, I felt I must confirm what titles my library holds. Besides the 14 in our online catalog, we have another four from the days before barcoding. Until the last of us wears out, we librarians will defend and protect shelf space for the undeservedly forgotten author. P.S.: I am now reading Catholics and finding it quite fascinating."
Duly humbled, a mea culpa on order, I checked my local library and found seven Moore novels on the shelves there. So find him where you can.
And now I face the challenge of mid-column transition from Moore to Poetry Month. Maybe I'll just return briefly to Catholics and the scene where we began MooreQuest, with a helicopter landing on monastery grounds and the Abbot quoting Lewis Carroll's poem, "Jabberwocky," while musing about the vorpal blade going snicker-snack.
Soon the chopper lifts off again: "The frumious bandersnatch, the Abbot said to himself. The words fuming and furious made frumious, and frumious it was now as it rose, levitating a few feet above the grass, hesitating as though looking for directions. Getting its bearings, it tilted forward, moving up and out to sea."
Our frumious bandersnatch today is a websiteseeing helicopter, which will permit us to highlight a few National Poetry Month promotions that caught my Jabberwockin' "eyes of flame":
In addition to a number of events planned throughout the month, McNally Jackson Books, New York, N.Y., is featuring lines from favorite poems on Twitter, beginning with "Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you," from "Remember" by Joy Harjo.
The Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, Mass., is offering a 20% discount on all poetry titles for the month and has a special event next Tuesday, April 7, when Maria Luisa Arroyo will read from her collection, Gathering Words/Recogiendo Palabras. Odyssey notes that the the book "gives a voice to the oppressed, the abused, and the forgotten. It speaks from battered women's shelters and from inside homes that hide domestic violence and child abuse. Laying bare the stark realities of life with phrases that are alternately elegant, blunt, and rich with vivid imagery, María Luisa Arroyo writes with spine-tingling candor that does not allow us to deny the truth."
The staff at Politics and Prose Books, Washington, D.C., "has picked a table full of poetry in translation, especially for you! Russian, Israeli, Albanian, French anthologies; Neruda, Bolano, Rilke, Virgil, Akhmatova, Celan, Zagajewski, Szymborska, Mort, Rumi, and Hafez--just to name a few. Come and browse both this international display and the English language sections!"
Poetry Month is a year-round affair at City Lights Booksellers, San Francisco, Calif. The bookshop's latest e-mail newsletter carried the subject header "Poets Still Waiting For Bailout," and I really love this trailer for a documentary film, Ferlinghetti, that will premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 28.
Perhaps because I'm a Vermont native, I found an Associated Press report on this week's celebrity-studded Poetry Month kickoff event at Lincoln Center an especially apt example of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways poetry can affect a person's life. The AP noted that author and humorist Roy Blount Jr. "spoke of a high school teacher whose oppressive reverence for Robert Frost inspired an especially cruel prank: The students tricked her into believing Frost had died, so upsetting the teacher that she stuck her foot in a waste basket."
Said Blount: "That's why people in my high school were grateful to Robert Frost."
The Poetry Month websiteseeing helicopter will stay in the air for a while, its "vorpal blade" spinning, so tell us what you're up to.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)