Poetry is not a Luxury

Description

The literary activists behind Poetry Is Not a Luxury believe that poetry best inspires the public when it is woven into the fabric of everyday life – making meaning and giving pleasure at both expected and unexpected moments. By choosing poems we find exceptionally readable, wonderful, and/or suited to the local context and placing them around campus, we seek to surprise, unsettle, and delight those who otherwise might not have any poetic light in their lives. Mainly, we operate during the month of April (National Poetry Month), but poems we’ve chosen may be found at Dickinson year-round, particularly on this website.

We are Carol Ann Johnston (English Dept.), Adrienne Su (English Dept.), Brooke Wiley (Art & Art History Dept.), and Joshua Kupetz (English Dept.) as well as student volunteers.

Please add your own poetry, comments, questions, and discussion to this wiki. These pages can be formed into what ever the community decides they should be. There is no format, just write what you want to and tell others to do the same.

Check out the Mini Pot Project page!

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Poles want Pope's heart

carved away,

the spillway for a soul's desire

who rests where with a heart in Krakow

and a body with limbs gripping tightly

the Roman dirt

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Poet Charles Bukowski, beloved of many who are not necessarily interested in the traditional literary canon, sometimes gets letters from readers who say that they, having read about Bukowski's own troubles in his poems, decided not to commit suicide.

To this I say, Poetry is not a luxury.

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I heartily agree. A dear friend of mine, the poet Rafael Perez Estrada, put it this way: "I only know that if I open the poem, it should bleed."

M.A.

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