A lot of people don't read poetry. My guess is that most think poetry is about love and flowers or that it is deliberately confusing. It makes sense that people think this way, given our lack of arts education in school and our lack of arts exposure in general society. But once in a while you hear a poem and you get it. You get why anyone would bother to write a poem and say something in a new way.
Billy Collins and Philip Levine are two US poet laureates (Collins just passed the title to Levine this year) whose work defines what it means to be American and what it means to be human. Philip Levine is a former auto worker turned Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. Often described as a "working-class" poet, his work relates to our everyday experiences, such as waiting in line for work as expressed in the poem "What Work Is". "What Work Is" is one of my favorite poems. Please give it a listen (the poem goes until the 2:04 mark).
Billy Collin's poem "Names" reflects on the September 11th attacks with amazing grace and poignancy. In our age of news bites and over-saturation "Names" makes that day and the people forever attatched to it real again. This poem is fantastic.
Wow ... all are totally moving. There's some kind of magic about spoken poetry. Thank you so much for sharing these.
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