One Foot Out the Door

Jim Lehrer's NewsHour Poetry Series

When Ruth Lilly left a ton of money to Poetry Magazine a few years ago, there was some talk about just what the magazine would do with its windfall. Something along the lines of bringing poetry into mainstream America, maybe, and then I didn't hear much more. This week a friend called to tell me The News Hour with Jim Lehrer has a poetry segment. "They're really into it," she assured me. Sure enough, the NewsHour Poetry Series is funded by the Poetry Foundation—Ruth Lilly's money. That's pretty danged mainstream.

In more obscure news, Gary Snyder spoke tonight at Columbia. Billed as a reading with commentary, "In the Light of East Asia" didn't interest me so much as simply getting a look at the last of the Beats. Snyder was the inspiration for the lead character in Kerouac's Dharma Bums. He's now a distinguished (and still a bit rugged looking) and good-natured academic. (Unfortunately, he reminded me of Baltimore who continues to be MIA. Indeed their paths may well have crossed back in the San Francisco heydey.) You know how I like to jot down great lines? Well, here's what one of Snyder's poems sounded like tonight in the cavernous Columbia library with the sound system from hell:

Mooshfusch zagn
strangely so over the kritsch molfields
kureght nushen still here.
Betcha grabber wolk kerry next
practice the Chinese
sene wejo inobgohne
grego.

posted by Karen @ 9:06 PM