"April is the cruelest month!/ We beg to disagree:/ April is Poetry Month/ Rejoice!"
With these delightful lines and an upbeat tune a short video invites poetry lovers and poetry novices to sign up for Knopf's annual Poem-a-Day offering starting on April 1, 2011. For the past 10 years, Knopf has sent out a free poem from one of its distinguished poets each day during the month of April in celebration of poetry. Poetry is one way to illuminate the many different facets of an increasingly complex world, leaving room for shades of gray when black and white interpretations seem to work no longer.
John Updike's "Half Moon, Small Cloud" Will Kick off the Knopf Poetry Marathon
This year's Poem-a-Day celebration is dedicated to the memory of John Updike (1932-2009). Updike remained loyal to the art of poetry throughout a brilliant career as a writer of short stories, novels, essays and reviews. He published eight volumes of poetry including his first book The Carpentered Hen and Other Tamed Creatures (1958). Much of John Updike's poetry was recollected in Knopf's Collected Poems (1993). His poetry, starting as light verse, encompasses a variety of forms and topics.
"Half Moon, Small Cloud" by John Updike
Caught out in daylight, a rabbit’s
transparent pallor, the moon
is paired with a cloud of equal weight:
the heavenly congruence startles.
For what is the moon, that it haunts us,
this impudent companion immigrated
from the system’s less fortunate margins,
the realm of dust collected in orbs?
We grow up as children with it, a nursemaid
of a bonneted sort, round-faced and kind,
not burning too close like parents, or too far
to spare even a glance, like movie stars.
No star but in the zodiac of stars,
a stranger there, too big, it begs for love
(the man in it) and yet is diaphanous,
its thereness as mysterious as ours.
"Power Corrupts," John F. Kennedy Said, But "Poetry Cleanses"
The highly-renowned German weekly Die ZEIT announced in March 2011 that it will print a whole page of poetry along with author profiles in its politics section for an entire year. The idea behind the project is to invite different perspectives on the political process by granting poets a more prominent space on page 3 of the publication instead of hiding their works in the back of the Arts&Entertainment section.
PBS's Newshour has offered a Poetry Series funded by the Poetry Foundation to promote the presence of poetry since 2006. Earlier this year it featured Haitian poets creating amid the rubble of last year's earthquake and a new anthology published by Yale University Press tracing the poetic roots of rap music.
It was Robert Frost who coupled poetry and power, for he saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. And it was John F. Kennedy who praised the power of poetry in a speech he gave at Amherst College (October, 26, 1963) in honor of the poet Robert Frost, who also read at JFK's inauguration:
"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths, which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment."
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See also on Suite101: Brian Turner: A War Poet's Testimony
Resources:
PBS Newshour, Poetry Series, funded by the Poetry Foundation.
President John F. Kennedy: Remarks at Amherst College, October 26, 1963, presented by National Endowment for the Art.
The Borzoi Reader, Poem-A-Day, KnopfDoubleday.com
Tegzess, Bibi & Ulrich, Bernd, Politik und Lyrik: Macht und Gedichte, ZEIT Online, March 11, 2011.
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