Dodgefestival2000

    Organizers of the Dodge, named the Saturday night ending ceremonies "Imagining a future: an evening of readings, reflection and music." The self-important craving of poets to sound like poets drives me crazy. They seek to envelop us in a bubble of effervescent bullshit the poetry must eventually struggle to live up to. In truth, poetry hardly conforms to themes. When it does it ceases being poetry and becomes propaganda.   Yet these hardworking master of craft gave it their best shot, conforming to rules set down about keeping their choices short and reading two poems -- one of which was not their own. Time for such created characters is always a challenge since they lacked the bureaucratic talents required in such events as these. These poets would do much worse on Sunday when confronting time constraints without theme or poem number limitations.   At no place did my vast ignorance of the poetry's range so reveal itself than during the Saturday evening festiviti...

    The meat and potatoes of the Dodge was a series organizers this year called the Poets among us. By meat and potatoes (I hope I spelled that right) I mean the middle and upper level practitioners of poetry who gather in the tents through the village to read their poetry. This is not the theoretical "how my life has been magically transported through my dedication to craft" crap, but instead the craft itself, each poet presenting us with his or her art.   Here I must insert a disclaimer. I am a narrative poet fan. Lyrical or totally image-based verse doesn't do a thing for me. Give me the tail of a sailor lost in a sea full of angry gods and I'm completely with you. But track life via the angle of a hanging toenail through various weather and moods of light and I'm out the door.   Some people are particular to the clash of images, getting their kicks out of the thunder and lightning of eclectic poems, the repeated rhythms of crashing waves, of mood swings or int...

  I realized later after New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey called for Amiri Baraka to resign as the state's poet laureate that we had not heard the version of the poem that had incited so many Jewish groups to hate Baraka. After being booed by poets whose distant relations once saw the Nazi burning books (as well as people), Baraka cut those six lines of apparently mistaken history surrounding the attack on the  World   Trade   Center  on Sept. 11 in later readings at the Dodge Festival. This act was later interpreted by the Jewish rights groups as Baraka's admission of guilt. In retrospect, I believe Baraka may have stumbled on some fundamental truth. There was indeed a Jewish conspiracy, one much more insidious than the wanton destruction of the twin towers. Jews didn't merely want to bring down our economy, but they wanted an even greater prize. They wanted to take over  New Jersey 's poetry scene. Didn't Baraka notice all the Jewish names associated with th...

  Any reasonably close study of poetry involves taking chances. At what point do you go beyond the author's intent? Are you picking up on unconscious elements even the author did not intend? Are you imposing upon the work your own limited view. The events surround  Sept. 11, 2001  and its anniversary a year later have left few untouched or created an unbiased basis upon which to begin a study like this. In fact, a shallow interpretation such as mine risks broad generalizations that the poem might not justify. In this study, I attempt to read what is in the work and try not to bring too much to it from outside the poem. In some cases, this is impossible, and I speculate on images or the meaning of passages. I also artificially divide subject areas. Poems of this quality do not break down easily into easily categories, so that this is a bit unfair, and you will find a strong overlap in each area. This said we begin.   WHO IS SPEAKING IN THIS POEM?   It is difficul...

  Because it is impossible to do even a superficial analysis of a poem without people having access to the poem being analyzed we are including the poem here. Although we paid $2.95 to get a copy of the poem through the Washington Post website, we did not seek permission to reprint the poem from the paper or its author.   9/11 by Robert Pinsky Copyright  Sept. 8, 2002 , The  Washington  Post   We adore images, we like the spectacle Of speed and size, the working of prodigious Systems. So on television we watched The terrible spectacle, repetitiously gazing Until we were sick not only of the sight Of our prodigious systems turned against us But of the very systems of our watching. The date became a word, an anniversary That we inscribed with meanings -- who keep so few, More likely to name an airport for an actor Or athlete than "First of May" or "Fourth of July." In the movies we dream up, our captured heroes Tell the interrogator their commanding officer's...

  Even a superficial analysis of Pinsky's Washington Post poem reveals a remarkable depth of both meaning and music -- a powerful clash of historic and contemporary images.   Near the center of this tight word-nugget is an image that haunted me for days after hearing Pinsky read an image that popped up in my head begging for a more thorough study of the poem.   This is a painful close up at the  World   Trade   Center  disaster involving firefighters. The poem and the poet then pan back from the intensity of the image the way a camera might on a helicopter floating over the towers of smoke to put the whole horror in perspective.   The poem refuses to focus on the disaster alone, seeking to pit the scene against its historic relevance, moving back frame by frame the way the after-the-battle scene does in the movie Gone with the Wind, showing more and more of the immensity of the poet's emotion.   Pinsky claimed his poem was not particularly po...

  Pinsky did not talk -- and he certainly did not write -- like any ordinary truck driver. He thought about what he said and crafted out his poetry. He was a soundman of language for which he was not unabashedly proud. He bolding proclaimed his ability to put great sounds together "as well as anyone."   Part of my inability to use poetry effectively revolves around this point. The public mistakenly believes a poet's main interest is meaning, when often such people seek music instead. Music combined with meaning made Shakespeare great. But music alone gave Dylan Thomas significance as well.   While Pinsky's poetry attempts to strike a balance between meaning and music, his poems unmistakably fall on the side of word play, with each poem a production in sound to which listeners must attune or miss the point.   Pinsky's somewhat anti-war poem read for the first time during the Saturday night performance in the concert tent and then again during his fuller session on ...