Kandinski wrote that an arts community is wherever you happen to be. During the past week, South Florida continued to expand on that idea with the Fourth Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival. The organization brought together some of the very best American poets to Delray Beach, FL, to lead workshops and hold readings. The festival came to a roaring close with a poetry slam featuring Marty McConnell and Roger Bonair-Agard Saturday night.
The differences between a poetry reading and a poetry slam are not unlike those between a symphony orchestra concert and a jazz performance. What was clear was that the spoken-word roots of poetry are alive, but it seems they could be better. The reading and slam were both powerful and moving, but the audiences were relatively small. It seems that a better case needs to be made for these things. In schools and on television. One wishes that ordinary Americans could name and be as fluent in the achievements their top poets as easily as they can name their top football and baseball stars.
The festival showcased some of the very best modern poetry has to offer and more people deserve to be better exposed to it. While it is true that there are those in that rarified community of professional-academic poets who sniff at the idea, the reading and slam made a persuasive argument for the act of public sharing that these forms have to offer. Otherwise, to paraphrase poet C.K. Williams, in the end we're just apes turning pages.
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