Almost as if to illustrate my two previous posts that propose a new poetics of authenticity, the latest issue of Oprah Winfrey’s magazine came careening through my window. To bring you up to speed, I have previously described “authenticity” as the 21st century’s favourite yardstick for measuring the worth of a poem. The notion of “authenticity” might be described as a new romanticism, shining forth the stuff we hold within us, while acknowledging that it was born in our wider culture before it ever lodged itself in our hearts. However, because our wider culture is fundamentally banal, so is most of our poetry. Because April is national poetry month in the U.S., Oprah Winfrey invited internationally renowned poetry expert, Maria Shriver, to edit a 36-page special on poetry. Like Don Cherry at a hockey game, I couldn’t not say something. But I don’t need to echo others, like htmlgiants. How about a different approach? How about answering the April issue of O in kind, with a poem? So here you go: The Letter O. When you read the title, I invite you to imagine a segment from Sesame Street.
The Letter O
O
Oval
Ovaltine
O God our help in ages past,
O say can you see, by the worm’s early bird?
O God, O God, O God. Orgasm?
O captain, my captain!
O, the vocative, the cry to higher being,
Ontos, the condition which draws me to the pub
on tap, on call, on leave of absence:
over hill, over dale, we will hit the rusty nail.
O me, O my! OMG!
On Monday last
off to the store to
offer my heart to the care
of one renowned in matters
of the heart and such and so forth.
Onward Christian soldiers marching as to
Offenbach and dresses pulled above the knees and,
on returning home,
opened the magazine, and there,
on shiny pages, pretty girls and their can-cans
offering a glimpse
of the poet’s life,
or so she’d have us think:
off the shoulder but on message:
our poet’s is a life devoutly to be shopped.
On the cover, our mistress of good taste
offers the poem “to Inspire the/Best in You”:
on a journey with Mary Oliver
over reclaimed land in Maui,
old W.S. Merwin planting trees;
offering freedom by the bucket,
our Wally Lamb shall lie down with Maya Angelou,
our comfort in that dark soul of the night
or (bastardizing Aristotle)
our poems to soothe and delight.
O’s poetry primer, blinders on a lame horse,
odorous platts on the road behind.
O the humanity!
Obsequious obscurantism,
ossified occidentalism,
obedient onanism,
oligotrophic obsecration,
obligatory obfuscation
one-armed bandit of the soul,
obstipation of the mind,
on and on and also etcetera.
Obtruding from the edges of the page
observations shot like canon balls
on where a poem comes from.
O, for a thousand tongues to sing the perversion
of the question, for if she knew the answer
our bon gout maven of the modern world would
offer it as a specialty channel
(on a pay-per-view basis of course),
ordering her engineers to fix
optic cables directly to the poetic brain–
Om–
Opening the pipeline full bore,
over all the land a thick crude
occluding even doves and kittens with its treacly goo.
Otherwise why would she have named her network
OWN?
