If I’m askance, then you’re askew
I walk crooked, but you do too
Words you say won’t make me blue
Cuz’ I don’t have to be like you
If I like my purple hair,
Or pants inside my underwear,
Or pantaloons that twelve could share
Why should you care what clothes I wear?
If I want to eat some beets,
Or blue bananas and hamster feet,
Or gray tamales with lizard meat
Why would you rue the food I eat?
I don’t care if you eat squid
Or leave an open toilet lid
Don’t need a big list of forbid
To raise a happy, healthy kid
Glad your teeth are jeweled and pearled
And all your nose-hairs have been curled
This simple truth must be unfurled:
It takes all kinds to make a world
My name is Steve and I believe
All that I am told
My buddy Bill who lives up the hill
Is a hundred and sixty years old
My neighbor Frank who works at the bank
Is really the king of Siam
My friend Frankie Nicks who picks up my bricks
Once built the Hoover Dam
My tailor Tom who’s always so calm
Is a super secret spy
And my homey Sal who calls himself Al
Owns everything under the sky
My friends all agree that I’m lucky to be
Their favorite trusting friend
Just ask Mr. Wirth, who rules the Earth
He lives just round the bend
I listen to poetry on my ipod while I stretch at the gym before a workout. Guess what? England (Caedmon, BBC, etc.) really kicks our ass when it comes to recorded poetry. It’s easy to find poets like Dylan Thomas available on CD in addition to actors such as Boris Karloff reading Kipling or James Mason reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. There are also many recordings of fine stage performers reading just about every major British and Irish poet.
But it’s slim pickins for recorded American poetry. Poetry Speaks is a nice project, but it’s only four CDs. And even the excellent Voice of the Poet series has only one female poet available on CD (Adrienne Rich) and nothing on CD from Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke or Sylvia Plath.
I don’t think Americans will ever crave poetry the way people in other countries do. And I don’t expect to live to see a time when it is common to find people reciting poetry in front of large audiences in parks and amphitheaters. But wouldn’t it be cool if, once in a while, instead of presenting music from some no-hit wonder, maybe Jimmy/Steven/Jimmy could feature:
CCH Pounder reciting If I Should Die by Emily Dickinson
BradPitt reciting Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot
Martin Sheen reciting Samurai Song by Robert Pinsky
Sigourney Weaver reciting Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers by AdrienneRich
Holland Taylor reciting Bohemia by Dorothy Parker
James Earl Jones reciting anything by Carl Sandburg
RosiePerez reciting Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath
KelseyGrammer reciting Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
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