- And welcome to the Monroe County Public Library and our favorite poem project. My name is Jennifer Lucas,
- and we are co-sponsoring the event with Indiana Review. And so I'm going to introduce you to Laura McCoy,
- the editor of the Indiana Review. And she will explain to you more of what we are doing. Thank you.
- Hi, my name is Laura McCoy. I am the editor of Indiana Review, which is published under the auspices
- of the English department here in Indiana. This is our most recent issue. And Indiana Review is a national
- literary magazine.
- Generally, published poems or poems that we have published and stories that we have published are reprinted
- in the Best American Short Stories or the Best American Poetry. And we're open to the public. So please
- come read and come visit. Check out our poems and our stories and help us select them. There are subscription
- forms over here on the table. We're also having a borders discount days this weekend. And if you'd like
- to talk about that, please feel free to come up and talk with me or Lauren Hartley, the business manager, after.
- Thank you. Holly Gregory is actually going to give the specifics about this evening. And she is with
- the educational service. She is the educational services coordinator with WTIAU. Thank you. Hi. Basically,
- let me give you a little bit of info about the Favorite Poem Project. This was designed by Robert Pinsky,
- who's our current poet laureate. And well, let me give you what he sees as the vision of the
- the favorite poem project in his own words. The project creates a record at the end of the millennium
- of what we choose and what we do with our voices and faces when asked to say aloud a poem that we love.
- It is a gift to the nation's future, an archive that may come to represent in a form both individual
- and public the cultural consciousness of the American public at the turn of the millennial century.
- The idea, put plainly, is to listen to the American audience for poetry.
- This undertaking is rooted in two convictions, that poetry is above all a vocal art and that American
- poetry from the time of Whitman and Dickinson has been one of our glories and national treasures. These
- two ideas are related in that they both point toward the individual reader. That poetry is vocal means
- that its medium is the body of the audience. The poem is said by whoever takes pleasure in saying it,
- not necessarily a skilled performer or the author.
- that American poetry has been one of our great national attainments raises the question of what role
- we give to poems in our individual lives. So what that means is this is sort of an open forum for people
- to read their favorite poems and talk about why they like them and what they mean and then there is
- a postcard here which is the submission form that you're welcome to fill out and send in and then some
- of these will be chosen
- for Robert Pinsky's side of the archive and the tape that we make this evening will be submitted to
- the project as well. So I think that's basically the favorite poem project. And what I'm going to do
- is kick it off with one of my favorite poems. I'm going to do Langston Hughes. He's a wonderful poet.
- And this is a poem called Aunt Sue's Stories.
- I think I'll say why I like it first. The reason that I like this poem a lot is because it reminds me
- of my own family. Langston Hughes comes from a very different background than I do, but the essence
- of telling stories in a family setting and knowing that they're real stories is important and that they're
- stories. My grandmother's a Polish immigrant and hearing those stories and knowing that those are true
- stories of a Polish immigrant is important to my family and how I grew up. So I think that's why this
- one speaks to me, I guess. Aunt Sue's stories.
- Aunt Sue has a head full of stories. Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories. Summer nights on the
- front porch, Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom and tells him stories. Black slaves working
- in the hot sun and black slaves walking in the dewy night and black slaves singing sorrow songs on the
- banks of a mighty river mingle themselves softly in the flow of old Aunt Sue's voice.
- mingle themselves softly in the dark shadows that cross and recross Aunt Sue's stories. And the dark-faced
- child listening knows that Aunt Sue's stories are real stories. He knows that Aunt Sue never got her
- stories out of any book at all, but that they came right out of her own life. The dark-faced child is
- quiet of a summer night listening to Aunt Sue's stories. Okay.
- So now I'll turn it over to someone else who would like to read. Jennifer, you want to go first? Oh,
- sure. Why not? Hello. I'm going to read a story. It's called The Face Upon the Floor by H. Antoine Darcy.
- And this brings back wonderful memories as a child.
- My older brother, actually, when he was younger, he was bigger than all the other kids. And so my dad,
- he would always make jokes about being Casey at the Bat and Mudville and all that. And so poems that
- tell a story. And The Face Upon the Floor tells a story, and it kind of hits my heart. Every time I
- read it or think about it, I just get teary-eyed, because it's about love lost and falling in love.
- So I'm going to read it for you. Hopefully, I can do it somewhat justice, some justice. As far as there
- are two words that I thought I'd share with you, I had to look up just to make sure that I was pronouncing
- them right, because I have really bad time with phonics. I'm not a good phonics person. So the first
- word is bandinage. And I lost the meaning to that.
- Bandonage, it's playful repartee banter. It's a French word. Okay, and then the other one is sue, which
- is just, it stands money, French for money. Some kind of five piece worth five cents or something like
- that. So now that you know those two words, the poem makes so much more sense to you. I know that,
- you know, for the last, like whenever I would read this, I would always come to those words and stumble.
- So here we go. Okay. The face upon the floor.
- It was a balmy summer evening and a goodly crowd was there, which well-nighed filled Joe's bar room
- on the corner of the square. And as songs and witty stories came through the open door, a vagabond crept
- slowly and posed upon the floor. Where did it come from? Someone said. The wind has blown it in. What
- does it want? Another cried. Some whiskey run or rum or gin. Here, Toby, seek him if your stomach's
- equal to the work. I wouldn't touch him with a fork.
- filthy as a Turk. This bandinage the poor wretch took with stoical good grace. In fact, he smiled as
- though he thought he'd struck the proper place. Come, boys, I know there's kindly hearts among so good
- a crowd. To be in such good company would make a deacon proud. Give me a drink, that's what I want.
- I'm out of funds, you know. When I had cash to treat the gang, this hand was never slow. What? You laugh
- as though you thought this pocket never held a sew?
- I once was fixed as well, my boys, as any one of you. There, oh, thanks, that braced me nicely.
- God bless you, one and all. Next time I pass this good saloon, I'll make another call. Give you a song?
- No, I can't do that. My singing days are past. My voice is cracked, my throat's worn out, and my lungs
- are going fast. Say, give me another whiskey, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll tell you a funny
- story and a fact, I promise, too.
- that I was ever a decent man, not one of you would think. But I was some four or five years back. Say,
- give me another drink. Fill her up, Joe. I want to put some life into my frame. Such little drinks to
- a bum like me are miserably tame. Five fingers, there, that's the scheme. And corking whiskey, too.
- Well, here's luck, boys. And Landlord, my best regards to you. Well, you've treated me pretty kindly.
- And I'd like to tell you how I came to be the dirty stock you see before you now. As I told you, once
- I was a man with muscle frame and health and but for a blunder ought to have made considerable wealth.
- I was a painter, not one that daubed on bricks and wood, but an artist and for my age was rated pretty
- good. I worked hard at my canvas and was bidding fair to rise for gradually I saw the star of fame before my eyes.
- I made a picture, but perhaps you've seen. It's called Chase of Fame. It brought me 1,500 pounds and
- added to my name. And then I met a woman. Now comes the funny part, with eyes that petrified my brain
- and sunk into my heart. Why don't you laugh? Tis funny that a bag of bond you see could ever love a
- woman and expect her love for me. But twas so, and for a month or two, her smiles were freely given.
- And when her loving lips touched mine, it carried me to heaven. Did you ever see a woman for whom your
- soul you'd give, with a form like Milo Venus, too beautiful to live, with eyes that would beat the kuanor
- and a wealth of chestnut hair? If so, twas she, for there never was another half so fair. I was working
- on a portrait one afternoon in May of a fair-haired boy, a friend of mine, who lived across the way.
- And Madeleine admired it, and much to my surprise, said that she would like to know the man who had
- such dreamy eyes. It didn't take long to know him, and before the month had flown, my friend had stolen
- my darling, and I was left alone. And ere a year of misery had passed above my head, the jewel I had
- treasured so had tarnished and was dead. That's why I took to drink, boys. Why, you know, I never saw
- you smile.
- I thought you'd be amused and laughing all the while. Why, what's the matter, friend? There's a teardrop
- in your eye. Come, laugh like me, because only babes and woman that should cry. Say, boys, if you give
- me just another whiskey, I'll be glad. And I'll draw you right here a picture of the face that drove
- me mad. Give me that piece of chalk with which you mark the baseball score. You shall see the lovely
- Madeleine upon the bar room floor.
- Another drink, and with chalk in hand, the vagabond began to sketch a face that well might buy the soul
- of any man. Then, as he placed another lock upon the shapely head, with a fearful shriek, he weeped
- and fell across the picture, dead." So that's my poem. So Holly, well. OK.
- Should I put our guest on the spot? You sure you don't want to read? Okay, well then Laura, I think
- it's going to be up to you. One of the most thrilling things about
- Well, in the office when we started talking about doing this, everybody got really excited because it's
- so exciting to read poems that you love to people and just kind of let them know about it. And I also
- chose a poem from my childhood, and I grew up with Shel Silverstein, who I love dearly and who taught
- us lots. And the poem I've chosen to read is Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out.
- My mother would quote this in order to get us to do our chores. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I
- do. Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout would not take the garbage out.
- She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans, candidate yams and spice the hams. And though her daddy would
- scream and shout, she simply would not take the garbage out. And so it piled up to the ceilings, coffee
- grounds, potato peelings, brown bananas, rotten peas, chunks of sour cottage cheese. It filled the can,
- it covered the floor, it cracked the window and blocked the door. With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
- drippy ends of ice cream cones,
- croon pits, peach pits, orange peel, gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal, pizza crusts and withered greens,
- soggy beans and tangerines, crusts of blackburn buttered toast, grizzly bits of beefy roast. The garbage
- rolled on down the hall. It raised the roof. It broke the wall.
- Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs, globs of gooey bubble gum, cellophane from green baloney, rubbery blubbery
- macaroni, peanut butter caked and dry, curdled milk and crusts of pie, moldy melons, dried up mustard,
- eggshells mixed with lemon custard, cold French fries and rancid meat, yellow lumps of cream of wheat.
- At last, the garbage reached so high that it finally touched the sky, and all the neighbors moved away,
- and none of her friends would come to play.
- And finally, Sarah Cynthia Stout said, okay, I'll take the garbage out. But then, of course,
- it was too late. The garbage had reached across the state and from New York to the Golden Gate and there
- in the garbage she did hate. Poor Sarah met an awful fate. I cannot rightly now relate because the hour
- is much too late, but children remember Sarah Stout and always take the garbage out.
- I'm a big fan of Shel Silverstein as well. That's one of my favorites. There's also Hungry Mungry, who
- eats the world. He's my other favorite. Lauren, do you want to go ahead and do yours? No, no. I'm going
- to do it tonight. OK. All righty. Well, you sure you don't want to read? OK. All right. If I've got
- the captive audience, then I'll read one other really short one. And then we'll call it a night, I guess.
- This is a poet named John Stone who is a cardiologist actually. He's dean of the Emory Medical School
- and a fabulous poet. Really interesting man. He wanders through his rounds in the hospital and not only
- does he have on his lab coat with stethoscope and all that kind of stuff, but he sticks three by five
- cards in his pocket.
- because he says, you never know when inspiration will hit you. So he'll reach one out. So he'll be with
- some patient. And I was like, just a second, please. And he'll reach down and scrawl a line and stick
- it back in his pocket. But really interesting man. And this is from his collection called The Smell
- of Matches. Actually, you know what? This one's too depressing. How about this one? This one's about
- death, which really is no better, I suppose, in terms of the depressing level. But this one's nice.
- OK, this is from In All This Rain.
- death. I have seen come on slowly as rust, sand, or suddenly as when someone leaving a room finds the
- doorknob come loose in his hand." So that's one of my other favorites. I just think that last metaphor
- is really nice. I think we'll call that a night and close this out. Thank you very much for joining
- us this evening.
- We all love poetry. It's wonderful, and the rest of this week should be a terrific celebration. Don't
- forget to make your own submissions to the project so that we can get a sort of national archive of
- what poetry means in our lives. And I think that's it, so thanks a lot for coming.