Poetry for the People

▪ 1999

      Anyone who believed in 1998 that American poetry had perished or was clinging to life only among a small group of academics writing inaccessible verse for themselves alone might have been surprised by recent trends. Poetry as an art form was showing renewed vitality and was being celebrated by the people. Libraries, bookstores, and coffeehouses were holding poetry readings; people were flocking to see performance poets and join "poetry slams"; and there was poetry on the radio, on the Web, on city buses and subways, and even on refrigerator doors.

      Poetry readings (usually dated to the historic 1955 event at San Francisco's Six Gallery, where Allen Ginsberg introduced his Howl) gradually became commonplace at bookstores—independents and large chains alike—eager to attract customers. Performance poetry—as much drama as literature—developed from more traditional readings and might have influenced rap music. The poetry slam, a competition between performance poets before an audience, was born in Chicago in the 1980s and spread rapidly. A slam circuit and an annual National Poetry Slam later came into existence. At the Arkansas Poetry Slam in November 1997, judged by Beat poet Gary Snyder and members of the audience, the first-prize winner, Daniel Roop, walked away with $1,000. Poets of the calibre of Ntozake Shange, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Sherman Alexie crossed words in June at the Taos (N.M.) Poetry Circus.

      Small journals and chapbooks, often self-published, had long been the staple of poetry publishing. Samples of such publications from 1960 to 1980 were on exhibit in July at the New York Public Library. Impetus to this movement came in the 1980s and '90s with the advent of desktop publishing. Small poetry journals also swiftly made the transition to electronic media, and " 'zines" and discussion groups proliferated on the World Wide Web (for example, Poetry Daily at http://www.poems.com/, Gravity at http://www.newtonsbaby.com/gravity/, or Agnieszka's Dowry at http://www.enteract.com/Poetry for the Peopleasgp/agnieszka.html).

      Poetry could be heard on National Public Radio, where popular radio-show personality Garrison Keillor served as host of a short feature called "The Writer's Almanac." In 1993 kitchens across the U.S. became workshops for do-it-yourself poets when Dave Kapell introduced the Magnetic Poetry Kit, words on individual refrigerator magnets that could be arranged into poems. Magnetic Poetry proved enormously popular for adults and children, and sales reached $6 million in 1997. In addition, the company erected "Mag Po" walls in public spaces in about 15 cities nationwide.

      Institutions joined in the fun too. In 1996 the American Academy of American Poets designated April as National Poetry Month. In April 1998 U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky launched his widely publicized Favorite Poem Project, in which he invited people to send in a poem that had particular significance for them. Response was overwhelming, and at the end of the year 1,000 of the participants were chosen to read their choices for an audiotape archive.

      Andrew Carroll, cofounder with the late Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky of the American Poetry and Literacy Project, made headlines in the spring with "The Great APLseed Giveaway." Carroll traveled more than 9,650 km (6,000 mi), giving away 100,000 books of poetry at grocery stores, post offices, malls, diners, and bookstores. In 1998 the country truly seemed to be, as in the words of Walt Whitman, celebrating itself, singing of itself.

AMANDA E. RICHARDS

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