Tuesday, September 25, 2007

I asked you a favor!

But only eight of you were even there. Seven when I asked the favor. No hard feelings. I can give you more information today, anyway.

The setup:
Remember being taught poetry in high school? Remember how you learned the same poems as your parents learned, which were the same ones their parents were taught? Remember how being told how you were supposed to read them sucked all the life and vitality out of the poems?

The problem:
My aunt Debbie is a high school English teacher in Bowling Green, Kentucky. She's recently fallen in love with poetry, and perhaps as a result, is terribly frustrated with the stultifying way it's taught in high school. So she's asked me to send her some poems I like and tell her why I like them. I'm all too happy to do this myself, but seriously, think what she could do if tons of people helped out. 

The solution:
As of today, I've started Heartable Poetry, a blog for extremely short commentary on poems we love and why we love them. The name is the link.  I'm probably going to come up with a less completely stupid name, but hey, the URL I wanted wasn't available, so for now I'm using the URL.  The blog is pretty much empty right now, except for some rough submission guidelines; I'm gonna hafta read up on Fair Use before I start posting in earnest. In the meantime, have a go at submitting.

1 comment:

smorlosky said...

I am a huge poetry fan because at the age of 2 1/2, Dr. Seuss totally changed my life. I would rank the seminal literary experiences of my life:

3. Atticus Finch's defense of Tom Robinson
2. Tom Joad saying goodbye to his mother
1. The Grinch stealing Christmas

Seriously, how much deeper can you get than these immortal lines:

"And he puzzled and puzzed, 'til his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before..."Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps means a little bit more."

Excuse me, excuse me...I'm choking up.

Next week: How "Yertle the Turtle" Awakened My Social Conscience, or "The Lorax" and The Drawbacks of a Free-Enterprise Economy