Tom McGee

The Woodstock of American poetry happens every two years out in Waterloo Village, New Jersey. Today (Sunday) is the last of the four days’ worth of events, and yesterday a friend and I journeyed out there to hear the afternoon and evening sessions.

The highlight of the sessions for me was hearing two-time Poet Laureate Billy Collins speak about his craft, and later read a few of his poems. Collins has the public-speaking style of Steven Wright, and had the overflow audience falling out of their seats laughing. If he ever ventures into your town, for a college event or something, don’t miss him. I’d like to try and reproduce some of what he said here, but this is poetry after all and the exact words and phrasing count. So in the meantime, go buy one of his books or something.

The evening session, roughly 6:30 to 10:30, was an open-mike style event where each poet got five minutes to recite a few poems of his or her choosing. This was the lineup:
Naomi Shihab Nye
Simon Armitage
Patricia Smith
C. D. Wright
Coleman Barks
Peter Cole
Robin Robertson
Brenda Hillman
Forrest Gander
Martín Espada
Jane Hirshfield
Franz Wright
Kevin Young
Edward Hirsch
Chris Abani
Coral Bracho
Mark Doty
Sharon Olds
Robert Hass
Linda Pastan
Billy Collins
Joy Harjo
Ted Kooser
Lucille Clifton
Charles Simic
Maxine Kumin

The format went something like, the emcee would simply state the poet’s name, he’d get up and say a few words of thanks or something, and follow with “I’m going to read three poems…” Billy Collin’s joke was, “I heard about the first open mic night. It was in Italy in the Middle Ages. A young kid walks up and says ‘my name is Dante, and I’m going to read three poems.’”

In addition to Billy Collins, I especially liked Kevin Young, Simon Armitage and Sharon Olds.

We also bumped into, and had a nice chat with, C.’s poetry teacher at CHS.

The Woodstock comparison I started out with isn’t really that far afield. Lots of tie-dye, ponytails, and long lines at the vegan stands in the food court.

I’ve never been a big poetry fan. Something in the way it was taught in high school made it seem too stuffy, and even though I’d learned by college that that wasn’t the case I never really caught up. After this I really want to.