THE NOTION OF RECOGNIZING poetic excellence came from the Greeks. The eponymous laurel tree was the tree sacred to Apollo, patron of poets. Its gratifying that Santa Fe, another city on this hill, has taken some hints from those guys.
If you need reminding that art comes from the talent of seeing things freshly, and making them new, while at the same time being able to discard the old and the hackneyed, spend some time with Darryl.
He is very present when you speak to him, with a sonorous voice that amplifies his words to something frequently like eloquence. He can be funny, irascible, amused, and amusing. He has a powerful, questioning, inspirational presence. Though he has only been in the position a couple of months, he has impressed a lot of people and pissed some off. So he is off to a good start.
Read his book. Go to his lectures. The Greeks nail it, as usual. Honor your poets. And listen to them.
What does a Poet Laureate do?
I go to lots of schools, which is fun, talking to high schoolers, and sometimes younger. I do lots of my own readings, and I did a musical presentation with a jazz singer a few weeks ago.
What it really stands out is how diverse yet segregated Santa Fe can be. You go from an audience of 50-year-old Anglos to a school where it’s nothing but Hispanic youth. Of course, you know it’s like this but when you’re in front of these different groups, it strikes you starkly how people can walk around in the same city, yet exist in entirely different worlds.
With this cultural mix, with so many people of different places, maybe something new can come out of it, something post-racial or something beyond the old paradigm. It’s a possibility. It’s a dream worth having.
At my last reading, I suggested that each person go to an event where there will only be people unlike yourself, people who are of a different race than you are, a different generation than you are. You may not understand everything, you may not even like everything, but you’ll learn something from it. Art has the ability to create empathy. And perhaps empathy can be a bridge.
What is Poetry?
Do you know what the definition of poetry is? The oldest one is from the Greek word meaning to make. That’s what it means. Anytime you’re engaged in creativity, you’re creating poetry. And we still have a ghost of this definition today: When a baseball pitcher throws an amazing pitch, they say Wow, that’s poetry. But the words are stolen away by commercialization of language, by politicized messaging.
When you first learned to read, language had energy, had a force behind it. That’s why four-year-old kids can read the simplest thing and be fascinated. It’s all new to the child, and you need to get back to that wildlife. The Greek definition of poetry – to make – takes you back to that Promethean fire, where you pulled language from wherever it comes from. It had energy behind it. That’s the source of poetry.
Some say poetry comes from the heartbeat rhythm, more than from language. Poetry at its root is an assertion of the human consciousness. It’s an immense power in the midst of all of today’s forces of media and television.
I’ve had many different writing teachers with many different approaches. Once I was in a class with a teacher who was all about doing things. We didn’t spend much time revising text. The first class, she took us to a strip club. This is not a joke. We would go to different places, do anything to get energy, or other types of teasers.
We were dealing with energy, about how to generate energy. That’s how I see writing, doing things to make energy. More than anything else, doing things–in your head, or in your life–things that create energy. It can be anything. For me, Trump was utterly depressing socially and morally, but creatively, his term was ironically energizing. When he was elected, I stayed in bed all day. But at some point, I said, the thing to do is to put all your energy into fighting this.
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