Poetry's demise, part 2

Last week I commented about the demise of poetry. Today, I am struck by the poetry deeply embedded in one of my favorite Disco tunes of the 70's. Here are a few of my favorite stanzas (I've added my own punctuation marks based on what I think it needed):

Artist: Peaches and Herb
Song: Shake Your Groove Thing

Let's show the world we can dance-
Bad enough to strut our stuff.
The music gives us a chance.
We do more out on the floor.

Groovin' loose or heart to heart,
We put in motion every single part.
Funky sounds, wall to wall,
We're bumpin' booties, havin' us a ball, y'all.

We got the rhythm tonight.
All the rest know we're the best.
Our shadows crash in the light;
Twistin', turnin', we keep burnin'.

Shake it high, or shake it low!
We take our bodies where they wanna go.
Feel that beat. Never stop!
Oh, hold me tight; spin me like a top.



I think it's "We're bumpin' booties, havin' us a ball, ya'll" that really gets me. The alliteration, the internal rhyme: genius.

Just a quick note-

My friend L. came to town last month. She and I laughed, ate lots of Indian food, and talked about old friends. A truly great visit. Somewhere in the evening, she said, "I've become a big fan of the quick note. No more long letters. Friends want to get a quick note."

I like the sound of that. I often get stuck thinking I need to write the grand epistle, especially when I have been out of touch for a while. But that might not be true. The quick note
may be better- it's short, snappy, and lets the recipient know you are thinking of her/him, but it eases the pressure on the writer. No need for nuggets of pith in a quick note. Hit and run.

This week I started playing chess online with a friend in San Fransisco. Every time P. and I make a play, a small message box invites us to send a short message along with the next move. Sure, there was some trash talking in a few boxes; I may have even typed the phrase "I just spanked your pawn," (nerdly, I know), but I've also gotten nice snapshots of his day-to-day. I know on Thursday he was waiting for his daughter to wake up, on Friday he was looking forward to demolishing some walls with a big hammer, and yesterday it was late and time to go to sleep. And I've told him about how I was getting the silent treatment from my beau, how my summer school classes are going, and how I just spanked his pawn. It's been nice to feel so close; we've talked more in those 'moves' than we had in months.

Maybe the women in Austen novels had the right idea, writing little letters daily that footmen would deliver across town to their friends. I don't have a footman, but the Internet is letting me send my own little notes out.

True confessions

1) I haven't written on this blog every day. Maybe that was an unrealistic expectation to post in my bio at the top of the blog. I was surprised, however, on day two, how much I worried about audience, topic, and self-revelation. It froze me up just a bit.

Someone told me once that a standard could be like the flag that marches in front of an army. The soldiers in the back never reach that flag, but they still march toward it. I'll keep the daily goal as a standard in that sense; we'll see if I get there.

2) I have been reminded that I have about three months left during which I can hold onto the
appellation 'thirty something.' True, true. The big 40 does loom large; those years ending in 0 always have a certain weight. But until I get there, I am going to bathe in my thirti-ness. Carpe diem and all that.

Harry Potter and the Ice cream headache

Sometimes when I eat ice cream, I overdo it. I think that I'll have one scoop, and the next thing I know, the pint is in my left hand, the spoon is in my right, and I am scraping out the bottom of the container while the judges on 'So You Think You Can Dance' are eviscerating another contestant. My temple is throbbing and I have the ice cream headache.

The same can happen to me with tortilla chips and salsa, or popcorn . I plan on having a reasonable serving, but when I look up, I've overindulged and I pay for it later.

That's sort of what happened to me this weekend with "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." I had the best of intentions; I would read this book in sensible serving sizes. Wasn't it neatly divided into reasonable chapter lengths? I should be able to read a chapter or two every night, spreading out the fun over the rest of the summer.

But when I looked up Sunday afternoon, having just finished all 700+ pages, I had that same old ice cream headache. I had read too much, too fast. I had eaten the whole bag of chips, the whole pint of ice cream, and my head was reeling. It was good, like potato chips or ice cream, but not enough for a meal.

I just wish I had the self control to follow the serving side recommendations on the packaging.

Poetry's demise?

"If poetry is dead, who killed it? In the 19th century it was a vital part of Western culture. Writers like Byron and Tennyson were practically rock stars. "Every newspaper in the U.S. printed poems," says Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. 'At the end of Longfellow's life, his birthday was like a national holiday.'

"But the 20th century saw the rise of Modernism and brilliant but difficult and allusive writers like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. (Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was first published in Poetry magazine.) Poems became less like high-end pop songs and more like math problems to be solved. They turned into the property of snobs and professors. They started to feel like homework. "It's thought of as a subject to be taught instead of simply an art to be enjoyed," says Christian Wiman, Poetry's editor."

- Lev Grossman, "Poems for the People," Time, 1/16/07

I read this quote today and thought about my students and how I drag them by the noses through Ginsberg or Whitman. We beat the poems to death, wringing meaning out of them. Yet some of my students have no problem enjoying the alliterative, onomatopoeic, rhyming, metered hip hop. Those songs play with language, beat, imagery and words in ways that would make Whitman squeal. But instead of building off the interest in language my students demonstrate with every flick of an ipod, I try to rouse their attention towards Billy Collins or Emily Dickenson.

I wonder if I'm looking or listening enough in the right direction. Maybe I should be looking again for high end pop songs.

Welcome and why "a delightful visit"

A few years ago, I received a postcard from my aunt with a Jane Austen quote on the front, underneath a picture of stately gates half closed: "It was a delightful visit- perfect, in being much too short."

I hope that those who visit this blog will feel the same way, and that it provides a delightful visit for many.