Episode 2 - Poets Say the Funniest Things

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #95

     "Word for Word: To read or not to read" begins with a wonderful quote from poet/undertaker Thomas Lynch:  "For poetry readings, the general rule is that if the poet is outnumbered it is a success."

     American past Poet Laureate Billy Collins engaged in similar self-deprecating banter with:  "No matter what degree of pleasure you give an audience, there’s no pleasure greater than the pleasure you give them when you shut up!"

      On another occasion he says, with no hint of self-consciousness or irony:  "When I start a poem, I assume the indifference of readers."

      On a third occasion he gives us this WTF moment:   "It is like an eye chart, with its big E at the top, and the letters getting less legible as it moves along.  A poem should be like that."

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #67

     Another previous U.S. Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, is paraphrased as saying she "regards the pleasure of poetry as private, and for her the right-sized room is her head, the words speaking from the page."

      LOL!  That would explain the lack of audiences!

      The last of many punchlines is that fact than neither these people nor those reporting on them ever mentioned the words "perform" or "recite".  Even in their own estimation, is nothing these poets write worth memorizing, such that we might present or quote it later?

      Okay, maybe a person needs to be a Shakespearean actor or a slammer to appreciate this final joke.

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Links:

Episode 1 - Poets Say the Funniest Things

Episode 2 - Poets Say the Funniest Things

Episode 3 - Poets Say the Funniest Things 

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