Monday, February 16, 2004
Declining the Laureate's Wreath
A few years ago a guy from the chamber of commerce offered to make me Poet Laureate of the small city where I have resided for twelve years. He was serious. "We'll get City Council to pass a resolution of some kind, hold a ceremony, invite the press." Whoa! I declined immediately. I like this city very much; it is old, it has character & conveniences; but I could not think of a single reason why I should be Poet Laureate of Rahway New Jersey. First & most importantly, there was nothing in it for me except a useless newspaper feature that might make me look undignified at best, at worst an unintentional fool. (Intent is the point of foolshness.) Of what value is such an honor when not conferred by one's true peers? Besides, I don't much believe in the concept of a poet laureate, especially one connected to a political body. Look at what happened to Amiri Baraka, lately the Poet Laureate of New Jersey. Uttered a few poetically-crackpot lines that we admirers of Mr. Baraka tend to just accept as part of the man's expression, causing so much uproar that the position itself was abolished, which was O.K. by me. He shouldn't have sought or accepted the job in the first place.
& there are the matters of the poet himself & of his poems. I don't care to be known in my town as a poet by anyone who doesn't need, seek, or appreciate that information. It is easier for me to go about in disguise; I've assumed several, including one as a respected local newspaper columnist & another as a goofy-looking middle-aged man on a bicycle. I stand on my art here; because it is not necessary that My Fellow Citizens read it, I become the most accessible of poets, as available as a minor poet can possibly be. I designed my "career" to that purpose! & of the poems? At the time this Poet Laureate offer was made I'd written & published only one poem naming a specific location in Rahway, & that without mentioning the city itself. The poem was about ideating suicide. I've since written another, concerning a cemetary. All of my poems happen someplace, many describe an actual physical space, very few give a precise location. Even "Boardwalk," as realistic a portrait as I've ever painted in words, is my invention - everything "real" on it was moved there from somewhere else. In fact of feeling safe, of belonging, of love being where I sleep at night, I cannot claim to have a home, where I would willing reign as Poet Laureate.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
& there are the matters of the poet himself & of his poems. I don't care to be known in my town as a poet by anyone who doesn't need, seek, or appreciate that information. It is easier for me to go about in disguise; I've assumed several, including one as a respected local newspaper columnist & another as a goofy-looking middle-aged man on a bicycle. I stand on my art here; because it is not necessary that My Fellow Citizens read it, I become the most accessible of poets, as available as a minor poet can possibly be. I designed my "career" to that purpose! & of the poems? At the time this Poet Laureate offer was made I'd written & published only one poem naming a specific location in Rahway, & that without mentioning the city itself. The poem was about ideating suicide. I've since written another, concerning a cemetary. All of my poems happen someplace, many describe an actual physical space, very few give a precise location. Even "Boardwalk," as realistic a portrait as I've ever painted in words, is my invention - everything "real" on it was moved there from somewhere else. In fact of feeling safe, of belonging, of love being where I sleep at night, I cannot claim to have a home, where I would willing reign as Poet Laureate.
