01.11.2008 4:09 pm
Support your local poet laureate
Post-Dispatch Book Editor
This week Missouri finally got a poet laureate. Maybe you read about it in the P-D.
Obviously the state has a lot more important issues than having an official promoter of poetry. But I think it’s a positive thing for the state: It shows kids that people appreciate and respect thoughtful writing. Otherwise they are going to grow up thinking that blog writing is high culture.
Maybe some adults can use a reminder, too, that some writers aspire to - and come up with - better prose than the babbling about ‘personal journeys’ and such that we hear on TV reality shows and read in vanity press books and everyday journalism.
Hear Walter Bargen read three of his poems at http://www.stltoday.com/mds/entertainment//audio/
