Historical Society hosts local poets doing readings in “Poetry Out Loud” on Sunday at museum
~by Colleen O’Brien, Greene County Historical Society
A group of poets in Greene County has been reading, writing and reciting poetry for one another for more than a decade. On Sunday, Sept. 14, they will share original poems with the public at the Greene County Historical Museum at 2:30 p.m. in a program called “Poetry Out Loud.”
They’ve done this twice before at the museum, in 2003 to a crowd of about 75 and again in August of 2013. As before, this Sunday they will read sonnets, blank verse and rhymed couplets about their lives and loves, their childhood and their old age, their friends and family, politics and social issues, climate and countryside. The poems are funny, or they are sad or wry. The poets will read “out loud and with feeling,” which is the main directive I gave the group back at our first gathering in 2002.
By the nature of the beast, poetry is better heard than read. In the very beginning, before written language, ancient tribes sing-songed their mammoth hunts and discoveries to one another again and again. They were setting into their memories the history of their lives to make sure they passed along not just the way it happened but how to do it again. The stories were repeated for generations because of the easy meter and rhyme in the telling.
Reading poems aloud reveals the cadence and rhythm of the words; it floats the meaning into your heart by the sounds and rhymes that seem to please our ears (“music for the human voice,” as poet Maya Angelou said). The elements of poetry contain two things – the words and the listener – so Sunday’s poetry reading will engage you even more than if you were merely reading the poems silently to yourself.
The current popularity of poetry in America is something of a phenomenon. There are more poetry books being published than ever, more poetry groups forming throughout the country. All ages and temperaments are searching for ways to tell the difficult and joyous things in life with fresh words that reveal their thoughts and emotions, their questions and longings, their history. We have a national poet laureate, appointed for a two-year period, and several states have their own laureates. These people are charged with holding public poetry readings and encouraging poetry in the schools.
Our county historical society supports the poets of Greene each year as we provide a public venue for their recitations.
Part of the upsurge of poetry is an attempt to escape from fast-paced living that connects us electronically rather than in person. The return to such an old way of entertaining and instructing signifies how basic poetry is to the human psyche and how well it works to influence and shape us. The whole art of poetry is slow, thoughtful, often a long search for the perfect word and the precise metaphor. It is a long-known form for self-expression that involves direct communication to the listener — poetry often tells exactly what you as listener know but had never been able to put into words.
Today, in America and around the world, many folks are turning back to poetry because of how its simplicity and beauty charm us in such an intimate way.
The Greene County poets, officially “The First United Coven of Greene County” (a coven being an assemblage), are serious poets who have more fun than any group should as they practice the ancient ways of explaining humanity. They email one another in poems; they write and rewrite, honing their poems for their bi-monthly meetings; and, if you’re poet Kathy Hankel, write a poem to your muse pleading for help:
You’re stuck deep in my head, you naughty grey gnomes. Stand up and advance. Evolve into poems!
At least half the group has been published several times in “Lyrical Iowa,” the nearly 70-year-old anthology of 300-plus juried poems published annually by the Iowa Poetry Association, a non-profit whose sole objective is to promote interest and appreciation for better poetry by Iowans. The IPA is associated with the national organization, American Association of Poets.
Sunday afternoon’s program at the museum will include the poets reciting their own work, as well as sharing some favorite poems by former members of the group now deceased. There will be a coffeehouse-like atmosphere, with free refreshments.
