The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

8 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, December 8, 2010 Basic Black by Arthur Black Caution: Guerilla poets ahead Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. ~ Don Marquis I can't remember exactly when I stopped reading poetry. Not in high school, for sure ­ I was mesmerised by Frost and Eliot; Pound and Dickinson. Not in my twenties either. Those years were saturated with the Beats and with Dylan. Not to mention a handsome young Montreal stud in a black leather jacket, name of Cohen. Actually, I never lost my love of poetry ­ it was contemporary poetry that did me in. Nobody put it better than the American columnist Russell Baker who wrote: "I gave up on new poetry thirty years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages between lonely aliens in a hostile world." Exactly. Somewhere towards the hind end of the Twentieth Century it seemed as if most poets turned their backs on the reading public in favour of playing increasingly obscure word games with each other. Poetry devolved into an exclusive ecosystem: poets writing for other poets, their editors, publishers and close blood relations. Readers can take a hint; they left in droves. Nowadays in most bookstores the Harry Potter shelf is longer than the entire Poetry Section. If there is a Poetry Section. Which is a pity, because poetry matters. Ideally, it is as good as writing gets. Poetry is to prose, somebody once said, as dancing is to walking. The poet William Carlos Williams suggested that what passes for "the news" these days is a delusion. He said that the real news is in poems. It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. But things have changed since the days when a Frost or a Sandberg or a Robert Service could fill a concert hall for a reading. Today, a poetry comeback would have to compete not just with the conventional print/radio/TV media, but also with the allenveloping Internet ­ Facebook, YouTube...the entire Twitterverse. Compete....or join in. The good news is, a poet by the name of Elizabeth Bradfield may have found a way to re-inject poetry into the public bloodstream. For the past five years Bradfield has been stage-managing a phenomenon called Broadsided. It's a guerrilla project dedicated to, as its manifesto states, "putting literature and arts on the streets." Bradfield's idea was to show people exactly why poetry matters ­ but first she had to get their attention. "I thought that perhaps if people ran into poetry on the streets, if poetry was paired with something eye-catching...then maybe I could persuade them that literature and art can speak to them directly and viscerally." Here's how it works. Each month, Bradfield and a handful of editorial assistants choose a few poems from submissions e-mailed in by poetic hopefuls. Next, they invite graphic artists to "respond" to the poems with some original artwork. Bradfield and pals then marry the art work with the poems and publish the results on the first of each month on their website as a "broadside" -- a hoary term for a sheet of cheap paper printed on one side that 19th Century rabble rousers were wont to tack up around town to inform (or inflame) the public. The next step is strictly 21st Century. The poem/artwork goes on the website (www.broadsidedpress.org) for all to see and use. Joe and Jane Poetrylover are free to download it, photocopy it, and do whatever they like with the copies. The copied works show up on office bulletin boards, hospital waiting rooms, airplane seat pockets, even slipped into the pages of magazines and newspapers. "What subversive fun," says Bradfield, "to find poetry and art in a newspaper insert, when what you expect are ads for computer gear and cheap socks." The world seems to agree. Bradfield's broadsides have been published and dispersed on six continents and as far afield as Tasmania and Healy, Alaska. Poetry running loose on the streets. What a concept. Marcus Valerius Martialus would understand. He's the Roman poet we call Martial and he wrote: "He does not write at all whose poems no man reads." Martial figured that out 1900 years ago. Seems like we're just catching up. Classified Business Directory LARRY Debra Inglis Interior Design JACKSON PLUMBING & WATER CONDITIONING Automotive Specialties BRIAN COUVIER Licenced Technician 117 Mill St. Orono L0B 1M0 Custom Drapery "Energy Saving Specials" Dealer & Fine Finishes by T. Osmond COMPLETE LDR CONTRACTING * Snow Removal * * Bobcat & Minihoe Service * Dump Trailer Service * * Tree Planting & Stump Removal * · Backhoe Work/Trenching · Pump Repairs & Installation · UV Lights · Water Softeners · Free Estimates For Friendly, Expert Service 905-983-9919 Furniture Repair and Restoration Caning · Veneering · Carving French Polishes & Wicker Repair Luke or Lindsay Porter H. 905-983-9924 C. 905-914-6979 "Look to us for all your general repairs to most make & models" Rims · Tires · Brakes · Tune-Ups Custom Exhaust Systems Castrol Engine Oil & Filter Service Specials Car & Truck Accessories Professional Installation 905-983-6214 905-983-5900 www.inglisdesign.ca 4312 Conc. #6, Kendal 905-786-2477 Experience You Can Trust I&T Carpenters · Licensed · 27 Years Experience · Custom Homes · General Contracting · Additions · House Trim · Stairs · Decks ·Windows ·Doors · Barns And all carpentry related work. Orono Veterinary Hospital Complete Residential Renovations, Additions and New Structures Windows · Soffit · Interlocking Waterproofing · Doors · Roofing Ceramic Tile · Siding Eavestroughing · Chimney Repair ~ Specializing in Stone Facing ~ ROBERT E. JACKSON Heating · Electrical Air Conditioning · ADDITIONS · RENOVATIONS · DECKS DOOR & WINDOW REPLACEMENTS · EXTERIORS · CABINETRY "We're here to serve you" Dr. Derrek de Haan Dr. Mathew Stephenson 30 Cobbledick St., Orono L0B 1M0 Tel: 905-983-9010 Fax: 905-983-5308 Authorized Consumers Gas Dealer Independent Lennox Dealer Furnaces · Air Conditioners and Appliances Main Street, Orono 983-6221 DAN ZEGERS 905-983-9543 TYLER SMITH broker "KRACO" CARPENTRY & CONTRACTING Since 1976 · Custom Built Homes · Renovations/Additions · Designing IVAN JONES TONY FANARA www.kendalhills.ca 905-983-5465 FREE ESTIMATES Call Mike Bonneau Mobile: 905-435-4181 Home: 905-983-9005 6495 Leskard Rd., Orono L0B 1M0 Nails & More By Becky... 905-983-9883 Mill St., Orono 905·697·1900 * Residential * Farms * Rural Properties * Investment Newcastle 905-987-5819 Hampton 905-263-9988 Rudy Kraayvanger www.homesmiths.ca 905-623-1101 www.kraco.ca