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| "Cyan and Wheat," by Sheri L. Wright |
We asked #BLauthor7 Matt Mauch to write a guest post for us, and he delivered in a big way, as he is prone to do.
Mauch's essay touches on the personal, political, and universal in poetry. It's a long read, and we were going to post it in two or three parts, but screw that because there are footnotes, and it has to be some sort of crime to cut this particular poet off in the middle of his thoughtful critique of the state of po things.
Basically, Mauch can have our mic for has long as he wants it. And damn if he doesn't drop it at the end, but not before elevating poets to god status.
Pour a brew or two, settle into your comfy chair, and enjoy Mauch's words, plus art by Sheri L. Wright:
"Even If I Gave This a Really Intriguing Title, You Probably Wouldn’t Remember It," by Matt Mauch
Let’s
start with Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman: poet, essayist, journalist, debater,
teacher, American, transcendentalist, realist, trashy, profane, obscene,
government worker, deist, democrat, champion of free-verse, sexual explorer,
nurse, obsessive-compulsive reviser, self-publisher, who said in the preface of
his great gift to the rest of us, Leaves of Grass, “This is what you shall do:
love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one
that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to
others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence
toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man
or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young
and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every
season of every year of your life, reexamine all you have been told at school or
church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very
flesh shall be a great poem.” Or he said that if the black sans serif letters,
on a white background, no caps (because ‘no caps’ is either (a) chic or (b) it
emulates electronic communication and by doing so says things about its own
coolness that hover below language itself), on the 3-inch by 3-inch magnet on
my oven can be believed. Makers and sellers of this magnet, whose content is in
the public domain, and no longer protected by copyright, have joined with the
makers and sellers of t-shirts and posters, upon which you can also purchase
portions of the famous preface, or if you’re more bold, more inclined to
permanence, you can emulate the many who have had excerpts tattooed to their
very own very flesh, images available via Google search.
