The Gioia of Writing

The Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia, is a great poet, and he has a great website.  You should check it out.  Here is a sample of his poetry.  I like his style, personally, and I find his fascination with reality, which comes through in a lot of his stuff, really refreshing.

Sunday Night in Santa Rosa

The carnival is over. The high tents,
the palaces of light, are folded flat
and trucked away. A three-time loser yanks
the Wheel of Fortune off the wall. Mice
pick through the garbage by the popcorn stand.
A drunken giant falls asleep beside
the juggler, and the Dog-Faced Boy sneaks off
to join the Serpent Lady for the night.
Wind sweeps ticket stubs along the walk.
The Dead Man loads his coffin on a truck.
Off in a trailer by the parking lot
the radio predicts tomorrow's weather
while a clown stares in a dressing mirror,
takes out a box, and peels away his face.

Comments

[Vince]

It is a good poem. It's nice to read contemporary poetry that's not afraid of a little narrative. The last line is provocative in a beautiful way, but I feel like it speaks of a Manichean dualism - that what's really real is not what we see, but what lies behind - that the reality we see is merely a garish mask. But for whatever philosophical issues I might have with it, it's beautiful just to see real art like this which grapples with these questions rather than escapes reality in a doomed attempt at self expression - all too often an expression of nothing which is inevitably meaningless, as the self is if it is not linked to reality.

But I wander - basically, I wanted to say - hurray for more poetry!