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.