In 1961, Newton Minow [2] called television “a vast wasteland [3].”
In 2009, it’s pretty safe to say
Ol' Newt's perception of scale was just a smidge off the mark. The brain fairly puckers to imagine the description he would cough up today.
Last night while bottom feeding [4] through five-hundred channels [5], I heard the oft-used descriptive niblet “X is a poet of the streets [6].” At the moment I can't recall [7] of whom it was said, nor who said it, but the meaning, I gathered, was that the poet in question was somehow more raw, less refined--hence a more authentic voice--than all us other coddled, lapcats of the Establishment [8].
It got me thinking.
Now, I don't know about you, but the last thing I want when I'm face down in the communal trough of pixels is to be made to think. One moment I was doing my best imitation of a paperweight [9], the next, my brain is sort of sputtering toward sentience.; It was an eye-opening display of the power of television [10]and I don't mind telling you, I am still a little resentful.
And what, you may ask, was this earth-roiling realization that came howling out of the wilderness into my cerebral cortex [11]?
It was this: It would be pretty durn cool to be known as a "Poet of the Streets," or failing that, the official poet of just about anything.
(Once again, television displays its unparallelled ability to induce envy [12], covetousness [13], avarice [14], and one or two others of the seven deadlies [15]).
Since "Poet of the Streets" was already taken, I googled “poet of...” and below is a sampling of the poetic appellations that the search spat out:
Poet of the Heart [16] and Poet of the Hard Country [17],
a Poet of Property [18], as well as a Poet of the Huddled Masses [19].
Several Poets of the American West [20], to go with a couple Poets of the American West Coast [21].
To my everlasting glee, there are not one, but two, Poets of Impropriety.
Unsurprisingly, there is a Poet of the Skies [22], but the fact that there is only one Poet of Exile [23] seems unjust, if not impossible.
Also, unsurprisingly, the Poet of Sickness and Evil [24], is also one of several Poets of Disaffected Youth [25]. (Go figure).
And then there were the ones that I'm not sure anyone realized we were lacking until the poets themselves showed up, namely the Poet of Minivan-driving Soccer Moms [26], the oddly nonsensical Poet of East-West Wisdom [27], and the various Poets of the Week, Month, and Year [28].
As soon as I wrap this thing up, I plan to search with the single-minded intensity of a bull-weasel for a suitably dignified (and marketable) appellation. I suggest you claim a moniker for yourself before all the good ones are taken.
Now, see if you can match the poets below with there titles above. It's fun!
Rumi [16], Philip Boothe, [17]Valerie Haboush [29], Emma Lazarus [30], Bret Harte [31], William Stafford [32], John Neihardt [33], Robinson Jeffers [34], Gary Snyder, [35]Sam Coleridge [36], Kazi Nazrul Islam [37], Saint-Exupery [38], Mahmoud Darwish [23], Lawrence Ferlinghetti [39], Allen Ginsberg [40], Bukowski [41], Baudelaire [42], Heinrich Heine [43], Osama Bin Laden [44], Rachel Barr [45], Paul Muldoon [26], Kenneth Rexroth [27]
Photo Credit: TV test pattern with Indian Head Image by Wonderlane [46]
Photo Credit: Television Transmission Tower by Woodley Wonderworks [47]
Photo Credit: Charles Baudelaire, 1855 by Nadar. Courtesy of Marcelo Noah [48]
- Allen Ginsberg [49]
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery [50]
- Baudelaire [51]
- Bret Harte [52]
- Emma Lazarus [53]
- Gary Snyder [54]
- google [55]
- Kenneth Rexroth [56]
- Lawernce Ferlinghetti [57]
- Mahmoud Darwish [58]
- marketing [59]
- Newton Minow [60]
- Osama Bin Laden [61]
- paperweights [62]
- Paul Muldoon [63]
- Philip Boothe [64]
- Poetry [65]
- Rachel Barr [66]
- Robinson Jeffers [67]
- Rumi [68]
- William Stafford [69]
