VOICE ONE:
April is National Poetry Month. This year, five poets have beenchosen to be honored. I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Great poetry is our report today on the VOASpecial English program, THIS IS AMERICA.
((THEME))
VOICE ONE:
National Poetry Month begins April first. The American Academy ofPoets started this yearly observance in Nineteen-Ninety-Six. Thegoal is to show the importance of poetry in American culture. One ofthe main events will be a reading by the world’s largestpoetry-reading group. On April second, people all over the worldwill read the works of poet Langston Hughes.
Other major poets being honoredthis month are Gertrude Stein, W-H Auden, Marie Ponsot (pahn-SOH)and Shel Silverstein (SIL-ver-steen).
Many people helped organize National Poetry Month across thecountry. They include poets, booksellers, members of reading groups,teachers and librarians. They organized readings, book shows,special meetings and other events.
VOICE TWO:
This year is the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth ofLangston Hughes. To celebrate this, the American Academy of Poetshas opened a special exhibit on the Internet’s World Wide Web. Ittells about his life and work. This exhibit can be found atw-w-w-dot-poets-dot-o-r-g.
Other groups joined the Academy to organize special events tohonor Langston Hughes. During the April Second event, people aroundthe world will read his poems. They will read his poems in schools,libraries, bookstores, and community and religious centers. His workalso will be honored at a celebration April Thirtieth at Town Hallin New York City.
VOICE ONE:
People called Langston Hughes “the poet voice of AfricanAmericans.” He was one of the most important writers of the HarlemRenaissance. This was a period of great artistic creativity amongblacks who lived in the Harlem area of New York City.
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri in Nineteen-Oh-Two.His parents separated, and he spent most of his childhood with hisgrandmother in Lawrence, Kansas. He began to write poetry when hewas a child.
As a young man, Langston Hughes studied engineering for a shorttime at Columbia University in New York. But soon he began totravel, something he did all his life. In Nineteen-Twenty-Five,Hughes settled in the Harlem area of New York. During his life helived many places. But he always returned to Harlem.
VOICE TWO:
Hughes became established as a writer in Nineteen-Twenty-Six.That year, he published a collection of jazz poems called “The WearyBlues.”
Hughes gained fame for his descriptions of black American life.He used his work to praise his people and voice his concerns aboutrace and social injustice. Besides poetry, he wrote dramas, shortstories and novels. He died in Nineteen-Sixty-Seven.
Listen now to Hughes’ poem, “Minstrel Man.” Performers inminstrel shows sang and danced and made people laugh.
VOICE THREE:
Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?
Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter,
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing,
You do not know
I die?
((MUSIC BRIDGE))
VOICE ONE:
Poet Gertrude Stein was born in Eighteen-Seventy-Four inAllegheny, Pennsylvania. Three years later her family moved toEurope. Later they settled in Oakland, California. Gertrude attendedcollege and medical school in the United States. But she did notbecome a doctor.
In Nineteen-Oh-Three, she moved to Paris. There she met writerslike Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway. Some critics sayGertrude Stein was as important for her influence on writers andartists as for her poetry.
Her first book was published in Nineteen-Oh-Nine. “Three Lives”told about women who work to support themselves. Critics praised thebook. It established Gertrude Stein as a popular new writer.
Gertrude Stein often repeated words to help express the messagesof her work. She believed this repetition helped explain hermeaning. Her line, “Rose is a rose is a rose” because famous.
Sometimes people found her work hard to understand. Still,critics consider her a major poet. Listen for the repeated words inthese lines from “Stanzas in Meditation” by Gertrude Stein.
VOICE FOUR:
Which I wish to say is this
There is no beginning to an end
But there is a beginning and an end
To beginning.
Why yes of course.
Any one can learn that north of course
Is not only north but north as north
Why were they worried
What I wish to say is this.
Yes of course
((MUSIC BRIDGE))
VOICE TWO:
The American Academy of Poets also will honor W-H Auden. Manycritics consider him the finest English poet of the TwentiethCentury.
Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, inNineteen-Oh-Seven. He was educated at Christ’s Church College atOxford University in England. Auden published his first book ofpoetry in Nineteen-Twenty-Eight. Another collection of his poems wassimply called “Poems”. It was published in Nineteen-Thirty. Thisbook helped his work become widely known.
In Nineteen-Forty-Eight, he wrote “The Age of Anxiety.” This longpoem was published as a book.
Listen to this beautiful poem by W-H Auden. It is called “FuneralBlues.”
VOICE THREE:
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
((BRIDGE MUSIC))
VOICE ONE:
Poet Marie Ponsot (pahn-SOH) was born in Nineteen-Twenty-One inNew York City, where she lives today. In her long lifetime, she haspublished only a few books of poems. But many critics say she is oneof America’s finest poets. Her collection, “The Bird Catcher” wonthe National Book Critics Circle Award.
Marie Ponsot began publishing poems as a child. She attendeduniversities in the United States. After the end of World War Two,she went to Paris. There she met French artist Claude Ponsot, whomshe married.
Many years later, the marriage ended. She raised seven children,mainly by herself. Marie Ponsot writes about home life, marriage andfriendship. Listen now to Marie Ponsot’s poem, “Old Mama Saturday.”
VOICE FOUR:
“I’m moving from Grief Street.
Taxes are high here
though the mortgage’s cheap.
The house is well built.
With stuff to protect, that
mattered to me,
the security.
These things that I mind, you know, aren’t mine.
I mind minding them.
They weigh on my mind.
I don’t mind them well.
I haven’t got the knack
of kindly minding.
I say Take them back
but you never do.
When I throw them out
it may frighten you
and maybe me too.
Maybe
it will empty me
too emptily
and keep me here
asleep, at sea
under the guilt quilt,
under the you tree.”
((MUSIC BRIDGE))
VOICE TWO:
The Academy of American Poets also is honoring Shel Silverstein(SIL-ver-steen). He was an artist and songwriter as well as a poet.His poetry and drawings please both children and adults. SheldonAllan Silverstein was born in Chicago, Illinois, inNineteen-Thirty-Two. He began writing poems as a young boy. Duringthe Nineteen-Fifties, he served in the military in Japan and Korea.In the service, he drew cartoon art for the newspaper “Stars andStripes.”
VOICE TWO:
One of his earliest and most successful books of poetry is called”The Giving Tree.” Later he wrote poetry books including “FallingUp”, “A Light in the Attic” and “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” He oncesaid he hoped that people of all ages would find something toidentify with in his poems. He died almost three years ago at agesixty-six. Here is “Examination”, Shel Silverstein’s funny poemabout going to the doctor.
VOICE THREE:
I went to the doctor –
He reached down my throat,
He pulled out a shoe
And a little toy boat,
He pulled out a skate
And a bicycle seat
And said, “Be more careful
About what you eat.”
((THEME))
VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Jerilyn Watson. It was produced byCaty Weaver. Our poetry readers were Shep O’Neal and Sarah Long. I’mMary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another reportabout life in the United States on the VOA Special English program,THIS IS AMERICA.