You Talk Funny: Some Notes on Accessibility and Poetry
By Eric Hill • Mar 15th, 2010 • Category: Editor's Picks, Essays, From the Interweb, Poetry
Guest post by Peter B. Hyland
At a dinner event last week, I met an engaging lawyer who was very interested in the fact that I write poetry. He had an enthusiasm for wanting to read poems, but admitted that he rarely does. His explanation was familiar–poetry can be difficult to understand. We were seated at one of several large, round dining tables, rinsed in a sharp kaleidoscopic glow that emanated from the walls and spilled onto the polished concrete floor. More than a hundred fluorescent lights surrounded us. We were literally inside a work of art, an installation by the minimalist Dan Flavin, discussing the difficulties of poetry. It seemed appropriate.
Dan Flavin installation at Richmond Hall, The Menil Collection.
From our conversation, I could see that my lawyer friend has a generous intelligence, and his profession requires him to wrestle with language and rhetoric daily. Still, when I speculated that most people are intimidated by reading poetry, he quickly nodded his head in agreement. He’s intimidated, too.
Read rest of post at The Ploughshare Blog.
Eric Hill is the editor of branta.
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