Today begins National Poetry Month. I'm not sure what I think about that--like Black History Month, it comes close to implying that those we ostensibly celebrate would be utterly forgotten without special dutiful attention. For instance, this morning on the way to work I heard NPR's Renee Montagne, who's always seemed a sensible person, interviewing Poet Laureate Billy Collins. After he read, in translation, a pretty good war poem by a Polish poet whose name I will not attempt to transcribe, she noted with surprise that it wasn't exactly an anti-war poem and asked him if he would read a poem which had "nothing whatsoever to do with real world, that has to do maybe with a pure escape, reminding us of daffodils or love or the classic subject matter of April." Collins handled the whole thing amazingly well. If you've got Real Player or Windows Media Player, you can hear the whole interview here.
9:45:35 PM 
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