#ShelterInPoems: A Great Evening of Poetry

So already, on Thursday night, April 30--the last night of National Poetry Month--I almost didn't tune in to "Shelter In Poems," the American Academy of Poets' virtual reading and celebration of poetry* chosen particularly for a time when the lucky ones of us were settled at home feeling unsettled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Frankly, I was computered out by Thursday evening; I practically couldn't bear the thought of looking at one more virtual face speaking earnestly to me from a screen just a foot away from my own face. And it was Thursday night, so back-to-back reruns of Chicago PD beckoned. 

But I'd registered to "attend" "Shelter in Poems," so I resolved to listen to the first ten minutes . . . which was as long as I needed to become completely hooked on it, completely immersed in this evening of poets, actors, singers, and other poetry enthusiasts reading aloud poems written by others. I don't know who got to choose the poems they read and who didn't; I do know that heard many really good poems I'd never heard before--and a number of familiar poems that felt new to me though they weren't.

Some readers provided some context for the poems they shared; others simply read. A few--very few, though--said something after reading their poems. Regardless, the focus was always on the poems themselves. They, rather than their readers, were what spoke.

They spoke so much to me that I watched the whole event again, and was thrilled when the American Academy of Poets shared a link to an anthology of the poems read that evening.**

I've reread the whole collection several times, wanting to understand the power of that curated collection, wanting to understand why I'd felt so electrified and so taken care of by that set of poems. 

• What made the event work for me the first time, and then work for me again when I watched it a second time? 
• Was it the individual poems, or was it the collection of them that worked for me: would each of the poems have had the power it had without its being surrounded by that whole company of poems? 
• How much was the power of each poem a function of its being heard right after the poem that preceded it?
• How much did it matter that I heard all the poems first, then heard them while reading them, and then read them silently? 
• What did the poems have in common in terms of theme and imagery--and did that question even matter?

I suspect some of my questions reflect the fact that a number of my friends who don't read poetry as a rule have been turning to it for solace and inspiration during this unsettling time. What is it about poetry that has made it more "right" for this moment than other kinds of literature? Why does poetry help at a moment like our current one? 

Alberto Rios Expresses Himself to Inez Tan, Juan Felipe Herrera, & Carla Hall

Thanks to an energetic, enlightening panel discussion offered by Zócalo Public Square*** this past Thursday night, I have some new insights into this question. But those insights do not answer my questions about the particular poems I've heard and read several times since April 30.

That's why over the next weeks, I am going to blog about a number of the poems featured that evening individually. Frankly, they're all so good they absolutely deserve individual attention. But I also think the analytical approach I've been taking to date--I've been looking across them to identify their similarities--reduces them in a way that violates them as pieces of art, as expressions of individuals. Our humanity requires substantial doses of truth and beauty during times of crisis. We need to make use of all our sensibilities, all our ways of knowing, all of our capacities to stretch imaginatively and spiritually, if we're going to be able to recognize and embrace truth and beauty, if we're going to be able to convey them and put them out into the world.

On another link on the Zócalo Public Square web site, Inez Tan says in an interview, "Whenever I'm thinking about teaching a poem or reading a poem, something I’ve been thinking about in the last few years is: Does it save my life a little?" I think what I'm really asking is, How did that "Shelter In Poems" virtual poetry reading manage to "save all of our lives a little?"

* And fundraiser!
** In fact, throughout National Poetry Month, the American Academy of Poets invited readers to share poems from their online collection "that helped them find courage, solace, and actionable energy." But I haven't even looked at all of those poems yet.
*** The panel discussion begins at roughly 6:30, and the whole event is just an hour long, even though the video link is longer.