The Griffin Poetry Award Winner

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From Quill and Quire

http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2011/06/01/dionne-brand-gets-the-griffin/

Just a quick question–does anyone read poetry anymore? I’m curious because I used to throw myself into various poets, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, etc and soak up their melancholy. I was young and dramatic.  But I also had some super anthologies with poets like e e cummings that I thought was neato and cool, and of course the classic poets of yore. But I’ve not picked up a book of poetry in decades. I’ve never heard of the winner of this award, heck, I never heard of the award! But, that probably is more a reflection upon my ignorance in this field than a comment on how popular or not poetry in this day and age is.

Anyhoo, I’d love to know if I’m the exception, a backwards luddite with little culture, or if I’m more representative of the general public. Let me know–but politely please–a few couplets would be swell.

4 thoughts on “The Griffin Poetry Award Winner”

  1. I still read poetry occasionally, but I almost always read it out loud, which I don’t do with prose unless it is particularly fine prose.

    Lately, I’ve been envying the delightful minimalism in Kay Ryan’s poems. Many of them are just perfectly worded sentences, which makes me feel like I should be able to write poems like that, but I can’t. It’s a little like staring at one of those metal “brain teaser” puzzles I had as a kid: “It’s so simple. SO WHY CAN’T I DO IT?!?!”

  2. I love to read poetry!
    For feelings of esprit
    And how to see the world,
    A near dream life unfurled.

    Isn’t it a good thing I read it and don’t write it? Sorry to make you suffer!!
    Lately my favorite poem has been “Morning Song Of Senlin” (Conrad Aiken 1889-1973). A perennial fav is “The Waking” http://gawow.com/roethke/poems/104.html
    by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963).
    I could list about 20 more!! I still have the anthology I used in high school and it is bristling with pieces of paper to mark loved verses.

    I think poetry reading is still going strong but I do not think you are a Luddite with little culture; a love of poetry does not reflect a cultured mind anymore than a love of sports reflects a healthy strong body. It’s something you simply enjoy reading and, with some attention, understand in your
    context.

    • I’m happy the luddite has disappeared.
      I used to write poetry–for a class, and just for whatever. In class, my professor seemed to think I was good, just not good enough for an A.

      I was asked by a woman’s history professor to read one of my poems, and did, and she was very excited–“why don’t you write more poetry?’ she queried? Before I could tell her it was because my professor made me feel I wrote crap, he chimed in with “oh, Diane hasn’t time to write, she’s an ACTRESS!” with a major snooty sarcastic tone. Gee whiz!

      Anyhoo, I’ll check out both or your recommendations–I do like poetry, just haven’t delved lately. Thanks to you both!

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