poetic potpourri

Earlier in the week a federal judge ruled an Arizona ninth grader should be allowed to recite a poem in a state competition. His school tried to prevent him from reciting the poem again after he did so at his school earlier in the month. The poem, "The More Loving One" by W.H. Auden uses the words "hell" and "damn" which the school considers to be obscene. Read the poem and judge for yourself. I personally think it's a lovely choice for a high school student. I was running around clutching volumes of Plath and Sexton at that point in my life. People should be happy the young man isn't angst ridden yet. Speaking of the angst ridden, The Poetry Foundation has an interesting articleDesire to Burn: Did Kurt Cobain die because he misread a poem?. It looks at a Alicia Ostriker poem that he copied out into his journals " and made a companion drawing. The story's author, Tim Appelo, asserts that Cobain's interpretation of Ostriker's "A Young Woman, a Tree" was not what she intended to convey. An interesting read if you are interested in Cobain or poetry at all. Here at "The Paper" lots of fanfare has recently been lavished on our very own in-house poet, David Tucker. The New York Times sent over a photographer to make his portrait. Heck, even I got into the action by showing his photo at the end of one of my daily photo slideshows and announcing I'd written a haiku as the caption. Tucker writes poems Enough to fill a whole book! In fine bookshops now The usually staid crowd of editors went wild, I tell ya. According to Tucker, I may have a future of my own on the poetry reading circuit. He already does. You can listen to a podcast of a reading he did this week in New York City. Or take a peek at "And This Just In" which appears in his new book, Late for Work:Poems . Like the haiku says, you can find it at your favorite place to buy books right now. Looking to find a poetry event near you? C'mon humor me. Nod,yes. Try the poetry map at Poetry.org from the Academy of American Poets. Pop in your state and it will hook you up with local readings, poets from your state and lots more. I just found out Alicia Ostriker, the poet that influenced Kurt Cobain is a New Jersey native. She joins other notables like Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Pinksy and William Carlos Williams.