Last Saturday, at a backyard party, I ate chocolate cake and talked with friends about Frank O'Hara ( particularly his Meditations in an Emergency and its carousel blur of color and sound). Poetry at parties, poetry online, poetry stamped on t-shirts, mugs, across the pages of my desk calendar. It's everywhere. I'm grateful. Lately I feel as if I've at last returned to this republic, a good land where poems are as treasured as children or a midday nap in a quiet room.
I owe some of this thinking to Martin Espada, who I met at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival a few weeks ago. He was one of eight poets presenting some of their favorite poems, the ones they return to when in need of music and inspiration. Espada's pick was Pablo Neruda's "Cantos XXII, Alturas de Macchu Picchu." He read it in Spanish and English and with the volcanic voice of a warrior god. I'm not sure which one, but I'm guessing Chango. What I can tell you, with certainty, is that his reading made me fast-step it to the festival's bookstore and buy one of his collections.
Before I read the title poem, I had never thought of poetry as a place. Now I think it is. It's where we live and work, tell secrets, give praise. It's a kind of home we arrive at again and again, and each visit can bring comfort or trouble or both. Espada's visit is especially potent. It reads as a loving fable even as it recounts the struggles of Chilean poets under Pinochet's brutal regime. But you don't have to know the historical context to feel this poem's sorrow and hope.
The Republic of Poetry
for Chile
In the republic of poetry,
a train full of poets
rolls south in the rain
as plum trees rock
and horses kick the air,
and village bands
parade down the aisle
with trumpets, with bowler hats,
followed by the president
of the republic,
shaking every hand.
In the republic of poetry,
monks print verses about the night
on boxes of monastery chocolate,
kitchens in restaurants
use odes for recipes
from eel to artichoke,
and poets eat for free.
In the republic of poetry,
poets read to the baboons
at the zoo, and all the primates,
poets and baboons alike, scream for joy.
In the republic of poetry,
poets rent a helicopter
to bombard the national palace
with poems on bookmarks,
and everyone in the courtyards
rushes to grab a poem
fluttering from the sky,
blinded by weeping.
In the republic of poetry,
the guard at the airport
will not allow you to leave the country
until you declaim a poem for her
and she says Ah! Beautiful.