New York's Public Radio Station had a couple things of interest to poetry writers today:
In an interview with Renee Montagne, Bruce Springsteen said "You're always writing about yourself... you hide it in a variety of ways, and you meld your voice with other lives." This is a message I've been preaching recently, especially to the kids in my workshops - you start with your own voice, but you don't have to stick to the truth or to your own experince in your poems. I'm not a huge Boss fan, and I think a lot of his newer stuff is message-focused to the exclusion of subtlety, but I do think his music exhibits this blending of voice pretty well.
Brian Lehrer is having a giveaway: call in with a poem, he'll send you a T-shirt. I didn't hear about this year's show live (a friend pointed it out to me), but I've heard some of it in the past. A question for practicing poets: Would you (a) call in with a poem of your own, taking the opportunity to publicize yourself to a broadcast audience, (b) call in with a good poem by another poet, taking the opportunity to publicize them to a broadcast audience, (c) call in with a humorous, light, or "made-for-the-general-public" poem, because that's really the audience for this kind of event, or (d) not call in, because events like this do little for poetry other than save $11 on some poet's wardrobe expenses?
I mulled it over all night and decided on (e): don't call during work hours. But that's hiding from the real question, isn't it?
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