Reflections on the first week.

Let's talk about Poetry. Let's talk about Poets. Let's talk about abstracts, obliquity and unexplained line breaks. Let's talk about things I don't understand, but have a burning passion to talk about with authority and delight.

JOSHUA BECKMAN 

I will have you know, it is not simply because he was positioned at the beginning of the alphabet and thus plopped in front of me from the start of Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century that I chose Joshua Beckman as the first poet to indulge. There were a few names and pieces I perused first, but his cut and dry, often comedic, thought-provokers struck me with something special.

However, before I even tackles his use of language, I would like to make note of something in his "blurb." With each poet I encountered, I made a point to labor through their two to three paragraph biographical excerpts. This process put in me a trance of university patterns: Swell undergrad, Super Post-grad, and presumed elite writer's workshop or doctorate. Soon enough, I was beginning to believe that all these poets have ever done was attend school. Beckman, however, states happily his stint at Hampshire College and then his the honest life and writing experience that has followed. I am not saying, that having a PhD in English Literature and teaching Creative Writing in a Princeton MFA program is small peanuts, but it was slightly refreshing to hear that not all poets have to fit the mold.

Ok, here we are: ["I like your handsome drugs. Your pleasant..."]

"Yeah. I go/running in, all ready to show everyone the/karate chop of love. And that girl named Katie./A Barrel of Chicken."

Upon three reading of the same poem, I feel that his work really needs to just be taken in, laughed at, taken in again, and then the reader must reach back into his memory and find the moment where he sat at a party, beer in hand, contemplating the actions of his baffling "friends" and slowly letting reality catch up to him, right before he takes another swig.

The poem reads well with humor. Beckman and his audience give a laugh with the reading. As the is in the present tense and written entirely in short, noun-ridden sentences, it's seems urgent and honest, like the reader is part of the thought-process of the speaker. The fact that there is little "sense" or moral provided by the poem gives it that feeling of unstable acceptance. It's as if we, the readers, are at the birthday party, we may be sitting next to that girl Katie, and as we reach in for the next pieces of fried chicken before he performs the "Karate chop of love."

A play of stupidity? Nostalgic musing? Commentary on youth and booze and drugs and balls and girls? A poetic play of language? Purpose or poetry? Just plain fun?

I don't know, but I am totally into it.