Day #26: Nin Andrews reads her poem

Hoi Polloi

There were seven of us eating enchiladas at the Casa Romera when Tony Papadakis stood up in the middle of the restaurant, raised his fist and shouted Obama is a man of the fucking hoi polloi! We all stopped and stared as he left, the door swinging behind him.

Who are the hoi polloi? Sarah asked. No one was sure. Three women thought the hoi polloi were the rich, sort of like the hotsty totsy, and three men said the hoi polloi were the poor. We all agreed that being a member of the hoi polloi was not a good thing.

Does that mean we love men to be rich and women to be poor? I asked.

No, Steve said. It means it’s best to be neither-nor. We Americans love those who take the middle path. Sort of like Goldilocks, we want to find the bed or bank account that’s not too big or too small, like the bowl of porridge that’s not too hot or too cold.

But Goldilocks was a burglar and a thief, Molly argued. Which is something both the rich and the poor are accused of being from time to time. They’re always taking from others what doesn’t belong to them. Feeling entitled. Making themselves at home in a world that doesn’t love them.

Tom disagreed. He said the hoi polloi are the average men and women, the kind no one wants to be. They’re the faceless masses, the passers-by, like the extras on movie sets. They’re designed to look so familiar that no one notices them. Their job is to be everyone in general and no one in particular so that the heroes and heroines can star in their own lives, forever enjoying the distant sound of our applause.


Nin Andrews is the author of several books including The Book of Orgasms, MidlifeCrisis with Dick and Jane, Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum?, and Sleeping with Houdini. Her next book, Southern Comfort, is forthcoming from CavanKerry Press. She lives in Poland, Ohio. Yep, that's right. And Poland, Ohio went for Obama. (This poem was originally posted on 2/14/09)

(Click here for a link to the MP3)

Day #4: Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Hear Aimee Nezhukumatathil read "Overwinter"


Or click here for a link to the Mp3


Overwinter

We have been waiting out the winter
             for eight years.              I don’t pretend
                          to talk for you                           or my neighbors—
             but I have been given                                        permission
to speak              on behalf              of mollusks, insects,
                          and various wily birds.              This is the price
             and the              pleasure              of a new president:
those who were hushed              now feel
                          like they can finally                           chatter and natter—
                          flex wing              and leg freely.                           The clutch
             of snails on the fencepost              near
                          my house can finally                           unclench
             retreat to               damp underboards
                                       of                           tool shed.              And I have it
on good authority                           at least one
                          spicebush                           and three swallowtails
             have promised              to arrive              a few weeks
earlier from their Southern                           holiday.
                          Those who              overwintered have returned.
                          Those who fell asleep                           are awake.
I myself risk it all:              I climb to the top
of a blade              of grass              the aperture              of my wingshell
             opens and closes                           and opens again.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Fredonia, NY) is the author of Miracle Fruit and At the Drive-In Volcano. She is associate professor of English at SUNY-Fredonia and lives in Western NY with her husband and son.

(Originally posted 1/23/09)

Marvin Bell Reads his poem

In honor of the one year anniversary of the inauguration and in anticipation of the publication of the Starting Today anthology, I will be reposting some of the poems along with links to MP3s of the poets reading their poems.

Enjoy!



Marvin Bell reads his poem from day 51.

Or click here for a link to the MP3.



The Book of the Dead Man (Day 51)

                              Live as if you were already dead.
                                             Zen admonition

1. About the Dead Man and Day 51

It is Day One of the second half of the first one hundred days of a new president,
          and the Dead Man is counting.
The dead man tabulates the war dead this good president cannot restore to life.
He counts up the pins in the map where alliances must be reborn.
This dead man is not the writer of Ulysses paring his fingernails in the
          background.
The dead man would go if called, he would enter the Halls of Congress without
          disturbing the decay on either side.
He would slide inside with the care of a porcelain potter, hoping to raise up an
          aggregate of minorities.
He would sidestep the partisan princes of darkness and the merchants of war.
For the dead man carries his bifocals like Diogenes his lantern.
It could be Woden’s day or Mercury’s, the Quaker Fourth Day, Ash Wednesday
          or Spy Wednesday when the dead man shows up.
The dead man fancies midweek, Hump Day at its crest.
It is Wednesday, when the way upward and the way downward are the same
          way.
It is March 11, 2009, the fifty-first day of something good to chew on.


2. More About the Dead Man and Day 51

The dead man has been newly roused by a president of many colors.
There has been a worldwide lifting of downcast eyes for good reason.
The fog has lifted that hid the systemic violations of law, and the dead man feels
          the ground shifting.
Now the indigent can hope for more than weeping.
For America was ambushed by the vile and the wicked.
Quickly, it was midnight in America, and the chuckle-heads were in charge.
The dead man is all for locking bracelets on the guilty.
Let the naysayers wriggle, let the hefty lobbyists go on a diet.
An age of chess and steak has become a time of checkers and soup.
The dead man waits for his nation to heal the sick and teach the young.
He welcomes home the armies that were the playthings of a presidency he is
          well rid of.
He carries the poor to the clinic, and reopens the laboratories.
His is the hope a young president released.
This president’s accomplishments will not be cheapened by the barking of the
          far right.
Check back with the dead man in four years.
For after eight years without a past or future, after the infamy of the de facto,
          the dead man may not soon lower his fist.
The dead man is constructing a runway for the perps.


Marvin Bell's Mars Being Red appeared in 2007. His latest book is a collaboration, 7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book, co-authored with the poets István László Géher (Hungary), Ksenia Golubovich (Russia), Simone Inguanez (Malta), Christopher Merrill, Tomaž Šalamun (Slovenia), and Dean Young. His two sons are, among other things, a country music singer-songwriter with a strong sociopolitical bent, and a trained ninja who helped guard the Dalai Lama in New York City. He lives in Iowa City, IA and in Port Townsend, WA.

CLICK HERE for an MP3.

Jeanne Marie Beaumont reads her poem

Jeanne Marie Beaumont (see text of poem below)
click here for a link to the MP3

Day #78: Jeanne Marie Beaumont

Rite (to Forge Armor for an Orphan)

For Obama, home and abroad

Let cherry blossoms amass into a thinking cap,
resilient as a helmet. Let candor be its visor.

Let mother armadillo offer her bony plates
for impervious gorget and pallettes.

Let porridge pad your ribs as inner cuirass,
and the Queen’s lamb fall to furnish jambeau.

Let your elegant hand in greeting grip
with a gauntlet of persuasive valor.

From father terrapin borrow a shield;
let honor inscribe its coat of arms.

And should the glamour of stardom
reproach your enemy, let it shine, let it shine.

Let mother porcupine give quills
to stitch into a supple tuille.

Let garden arugula arise for brassart
and Swiss chard guard as sturdy cuisse.

The world is heavy freight, it shifts in transit.
Let keenness be the keeper of equilibrium.

Let sky mother bend to protect in transport
each gallant motion of your head.

Let father grass solder his longest blades
into sollerets to strengthen your steps.

Let all that thrives in air conspire to keep you safe,
and character be wrought six-fold.

So let such armor prove disarming.
Let it shine. Let it shine.


Jeanne Marie Beaumont lives in Manhattan and teaches at the 92nd Street Y, and in the Stonecoast MFA Program. She is also director of the annual Frost Place Advanced Poetry Seminar. Her books are Curious Conduct (Boa Editions 2004) and Placebo Effects (Norton 1997).

(CLICK HERE for the link to the MP3)