Poetic Sweet Talk Nothing More?

When I closed my eyes at night I saw myself as a hip hop poet, a little poet who is androgynous in art and form, tattoo filled chilling back in a house on a hill driving a jeep with the love of my life and my child at my side. A dream carved out of poetry. Yeah I said it poetry. Not music, storytelling or any other lyrical genre, not even performance poetry. Poetry the real deal, page poetry kind of deal. An art form that some say is dead. Or boring. Or too complicated. Or just not bought in bookshops.

Which has me now in this stage of my life thinking about the contemporary Caribbean poet a few of whom I have been lucky to have met, read or even laughed strange laughs with. All of whom I feel completely inferior to, let me do some name calling so you can get the idea: Kei Miller, Ishion Hutchinson, Tanya Shirley, Christian Campbell, Millicent Graham and even Ann Margerett Lyn last but not least M'bala, all published poets in one way or another. All Caribbean. All black. None a Performance Poet. None a Poet Laureate. None rich beyond recognition. All really sweet writers of language using a style that is authentic to their ear. After all isn't that what poetry is language and music/ rhythm carrying with in it a particular sensation emotional or logical? A rhythmic metaphor?

To me that is so sweet a notion that I wonder about its death, who is responsible and is there a possibility of a financial resurrection? Man fuck financial, just a resurrection. Has our audience become so lazy that unless they hear the rhythm heavy above or under, as the case may be, the words of the song they will not listen because it is just words, too complex to taken seriously. 

In so many places the poet has been asked to beef up these words on the page perform it so to speak in order to keep the audience from falling asleep. To this some lovers of poetry have given the charge after labeling themselves elitist to "let the poem do the work". Except sometimes the poem and its meter (if it has any) is in fact lazy unable to grab any attention with its short hands. After all it is the poets baby so why not stretch your child so that its cuteness can turn heads? Maybe with this thought I will never be enlisted in the group of contemporary greats that I have just mentioned.

But think of it poetry finds itself competing against so many genres of music, so many other rhythms that it has become like many words in the English canon archaic. Sometimes I think the only reason the word poetry has not been put out to the pasture is simply because it still gets the girls. Hopefully Common's and Jay-z's lyrics wont challenge that. So why not revolutionize the poetry on the page so that there are various entry points for audiences instead of drawing darn lines between performance poetry and page poetry. What I am asking is for poets not to dumb down  poetry so that the language and the metaphor become lost under the rhythm but rather stay true to the art and its form all the while inviting the audience to fall in love again with the art form.

A Picture from Billy Collins' Action Poetry "Forgetfulness"

So where are the various entry points that can be used by the writers of poetry, outside of writing a book and standing up and doing a reading or making a CD with classical music in the background? What other art form  can we invite outside of musicians to let the audience fall deeper in love with poetry? How can we seduce the audience to fall into the archaic arms of poetry? A poet once told me to never think about the industry just think about you and your art and "all of them will follow". And since he is the pipe piper of Jamaican poetry maybe I should listen. After all change is inevitable.

Ohh by the way if you haven't read any of the works of the writers above shut up and go and buy a copy of their work.  Cause that's Caribbean poetry and its worth a sleezy endorsement. Cause I bet they want to be rich too. Besides poetry books are way cheaper than novels, shouldn't be too hard to buy then. Then realize why its so sad that I have had to engage with the idea of new entry points for the audience when the art is so good. Sad realities but true.