A little while ago, I was talking to Finley.....
About a State Fair poetry contest he and I are sponsoring.
The rules are pretty simple, your poems are to be 100 words or less, have some kind of connection to food, and if your poem has the ability to make the judges laugh, or even smile....you get bonus points for that.
With that said, some of the entries submitted were very dark.
I realize that poems sometimes need to be edgy, but from my observation, I am finding that a lot of my cities poets seem to prefer to focus on themes that are dank and morose.
When I ran this by Finley, he didn't disagree......
"Ya Know" he said "I think what poets should do is try to capture the feeling that I got during the scene in Spiderman 2, when Peter Parker was trying to save that subway. Remember when his mask was pulled off, and everybody realized this hero who was fighting for the city was just a kid?"
Now I can hear it in Mikes voice, he was getting choked up over a scene from a comic book film.
"I just think that if more writers kept this in mind, that the world is filled with people like Spiderman, who go out of their way to help, and better situations with no regard for themselves...can you imagine how inspired we'd become."
At the same moment, I was becoming moved myself, and I know the whole thing seems sappy, but there really is something wonderful about the faith we plug into throughout our youth, and I think both Mike and and were free enough during our childhood to allow ourselves to become as vulnerable as our hero's featured in the Marvel comic strips.
With that said, if you are reading this, i respectfully would ask you to consider making your next writing project focus on delivering others hope.
About a State Fair poetry contest he and I are sponsoring.
The rules are pretty simple, your poems are to be 100 words or less, have some kind of connection to food, and if your poem has the ability to make the judges laugh, or even smile....you get bonus points for that.
With that said, some of the entries submitted were very dark.
I realize that poems sometimes need to be edgy, but from my observation, I am finding that a lot of my cities poets seem to prefer to focus on themes that are dank and morose.
When I ran this by Finley, he didn't disagree......
"Ya Know" he said "I think what poets should do is try to capture the feeling that I got during the scene in Spiderman 2, when Peter Parker was trying to save that subway. Remember when his mask was pulled off, and everybody realized this hero who was fighting for the city was just a kid?"
Now I can hear it in Mikes voice, he was getting choked up over a scene from a comic book film.
"I just think that if more writers kept this in mind, that the world is filled with people like Spiderman, who go out of their way to help, and better situations with no regard for themselves...can you imagine how inspired we'd become."
At the same moment, I was becoming moved myself, and I know the whole thing seems sappy, but there really is something wonderful about the faith we plug into throughout our youth, and I think both Mike and and were free enough during our childhood to allow ourselves to become as vulnerable as our hero's featured in the Marvel comic strips.
With that said, if you are reading this, i respectfully would ask you to consider making your next writing project focus on delivering others hope.
One of the unspoken problems in Spiderman is that he keeps doing brave things and is not acknowledged for them. I was saying that thus is the human condition. While not being perfect, we are all superego-driven and are trying our best to be good persons. Mostly! So there is this great hunger in all of us to be known, not just for our names and resumes, but for a lifetime of trying, and failing and getting up and trying again. It makes us all heroes -- just like that saying of (supposedly) Philo of Alexandria.
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