A diversity of verse

When I first set out to report on the future of poetry in Minnesota as perceived by four notable local practitioners—acclaimed page poets Stephen Burt and Lightsey Darst, hip-hop rhyme-sayer Desdamona, and spoken word maven Lorena Duarte—I was starry-eyed with excitement. I assumed the four poets and I would get together for a discussion that would culminate in a transcendental (and lyrical, and metaphorical) answer to where poetry is headed in this fine state. Perhaps we would collectively write a predictive quatrain, á la the prophet and poet Nostradamus.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, a more truly representative picture of what’s on the Minnesota poetry horizon emerged.

Their answers, each one thoughtful and deliberate, were as varied as the poets’ work. Still, each writer spoke highly of what Minnesota offers them, in agreement that the North Star State truly is a stellar home for verse.

“Depending on who you speak to and whether you [as a journalist] bring your microphone you’ll get different takes. But to be a writer of contemporary verse, there’s really no place better than Minnesota,” says Stephen Burt. (Burt’s day job: poetry critic and head of the English Department at Macalester College.) Burt’s own poetry is imbued with a sense of place that comes from living in the Twin Cities metro area, and yet he confesses, “I have no more connection to parts of Minnesota 30 miles from the Hennepin Avenue Bridge than I do to Oklahoma.” Even so, he believes his connection to the area is strong enough that, no matter where he goes from here, he’ll continue to make art about Minnesota.

As he elaborated on the state of literary poetry in our fair state, Burt leaned back in his chair in his book-buried office, pushed his glasses up with his finger, and smiled.

On the Page

For one thing, Minnesota grows page poets that stay rooted here. “This is not a place that’s going to make you internationally famous fast,” Burt explains wryly. “But this is a place for poets who are looking to create and find readers for a steady body of work (which is what they should be doing).” Referring to “page poets,” Burt is speaking specifically about writers looking to produce books of poetry (as opposed to spoken word, but more on that later).

Burt credits both institutional and reader support as well as artistic prowess for Minnesota’s success in cultivating literary poetry: there is a tradition (and established readership) valuing page poetry as an art form, from the fertile work of plain-style realists Robert Bly and Thomas McGrath, as well as their contemporaries Joyce Sutphen and Jim Moore. There’s also excellent state and nonprofit funding for the arts, and a cadre of local presses that produce books of poetry, such as Graywolf Press, Milkweed Editions, Coffee House Press, New Rivers Press, Spout Press, and the literary review Rain Taxi.

Burt explains further, “There is a lot of interest in more challenging and less narrative poetry—more linguistically fragmented kinds of writing that see their precedence not in the Midwest but on the European continent and in surrealism.” He ticks off the important names—Sarah Fox, Amanda Nadelberg, and, Dobby Gibson—the next poetry superstars making Minnesota their base.

Lightsey Darst is one such poet redefining the Minnesota poetic voice. Describing her work as “lyrical,” she says also, “I tend toward surrealist.” Darst came from Tallahasse, Florida for graduate writing program at the University of Minnesota, won a state arts board grant, and then married. These are the “silly coincidences” that keep her here, as well as a supportive dance community (Darst’s day job: dance critic).

And of course, the congenial economics keep her here, too. “You can live here and work part-time, and have a house and afford to make art,” she says.

And, though it may be agony for the rest of us, according to Darst the weather is perfect for poets. “The whole state goes through these wild mood swings. It’s inspiring. There is this built-in manic depression.”

As the curator of the weekly What Light poetry contest on mnartists.org (sponsored by the independent Minneapolis bookstore Magers and Quinn), Darst can attest to the vibrant future of Minnesota poetry by the diversity and quantity of submissions. “We get poets from all over,” she explains. “Grand Rapids, Moorhead, Duluth. And a lot of people write good funny poetry.” (Including one recent What Light winning poem by Michael Finley, titled “Is There Nascar in Heaven?”). And people seem to be getting out more to enjoy live events that include poetry. She goes on, “there are so many more of these happenings: readings and dance together, readings in a gallery. There’s so much mixing going on. I’d like to see more of that.”

On the Mic

Darst could have been talking about Desdamona. When it comes to mixing poetry and performance and music, she’s leading the charge. After she dropped out of college in Iowa, Desdamona drove to the Twin Cities in hopes of becoming the next hip hop recording star; and then she worked three jobs, all the while hitting open mics. She didn’t even know what “spoken word” was. All she knew is she could write poetry that sounded good under a hip hop beat. Today, Desdemona has carved out an innovative niche in Minnesota poetry: she runs the long-time open mic at the Blue Nile Restaurant on Franklin Ave. (in Minneapolis) and she organizes the aural events for the yearly hip hop art summit, Be Girl B, at Intermedia Arts. Not to mention the fact that she is a popular local recording artist and live act in her own right, named Minnesota’s “Spoken Word Artist of the Year” four times.

She’s the only poet I spoke to whose day job is actually her art. She’s simply makes her living being “Desdamona.” While we’re browsing through a hip hop store, The Fifth Element on Hennepin, flipping through the discs to find hers (it’s sold out), Desdemona laughs at how she’s been called everything from a poet to a rapper to an R&B singer. Desdemona herself doesn’t worry too much about how she’s classified. She says she just considers herself a storyteller: “The telling is the important part of it for me. When you read a book, it’s you and the book, a solitary thing. When you get up and read the book out loud, it becomes different. It’s the same with poetry. When you get up and perform poetry, now you are engaging community. You are doing something ancient.”

As evidence, Desdamona passes me a book she uses when she teaches Twin Cities youth about hip hop and poetry. It’s an instructional text that compares and contrasts influential poems with influential hip hop and rap songs. I open to a random page, and there’s Dylan Thomas next to Tupac Shakur. She points at the pages with conviction. “When I go in and work with kids who have problems with literacy, I say, ‘This is about you.’”

Poet and spoken word performer Lorena Duarte could not agree more. “Having personally been ensconced in the ivory tower of academia, [I can attest that] there are amazing things there. But it doesn’t usually inspire youth or students of color, the [very] people who need to see the kinds of poems that speak to inner truth and the inner strength of human beings,” Duarte argues.

Access and convergence. In a nutshell, that’s what Duarte hopes for Minnesota’s future in verse. It’s also something she embodies. She just represented Minnesota in the World Poetry Slam in Vancouver, British Columbia this February.

Like Desdamona, Duarte’s work also defies facile categories. As I walk into her campus office, she turns down the opera she’s playing in order to speak to me. [Duarte’s day job: program associate at the Department of Chicano Studies at the U of M] When asked about her take on the poetry scene she enthuses, “I think there’s a phenomenon of slam and spoken word here in Minnesota. I hope some of that energy and enthusiasm will carry over into academia and into the circles of page poets.”

This is a hope that seems born of her Minnesota immigrant upbringing. Raised here and in El Salvador, Duarte graduated from South St. Paul high school and from Harvard with a degree in Hispanic Studies/Romance Languages. Then, she came back to the Twin Cities to serve as editor of her father’s Spanish language newspaper, La Prensa. She came to writing and performing poetry later. “My first exposure was my mother reciting Latin poems. They weren’t easy poems. You had to recite them with glamor.” She’s since hooked up with a group of latina poets who call themselves the Las Palabristas, and has immersed herself in Twin Cities’ poetry and spoken word scene.

Duarte believes that the distinction between page poetry and performance poetry “is quite harmful. There’s a kind of snobbery in that. What’s beautiful about spoken word is that it’s a very democratic way of sharing your worldview.”

“There are poems that lend themselves to the stage, but I try to think of a poem that I do on stage as also a poem that is on the page. Ultimately, I would hope that poets and poems and poetry can inform each other, crisscross, mish-mash. We learn best and grow best when we inspire each other.”

And then she sums up, with an eloquent answer to the question of the future of verse I’ve been looking for: “Ultimately, there must be magic in the words. Do the words live? Do they breathe on their own? Then that’s a poem.”

And Minnesota’s poetic future.

About the poets:

Keep track of hip-hop poet Desdamona’s latest news and show information by visiting her website.

Stephen Burt is a critic and poet who is currently serving as the chair of Macalester College’s English Department. He will begin a new gig teaching at Harvard University this fall. You can find links to his poetry, criticism, and miscellaneous freelance writing on the charming blog he writes with his wife. He will be reading from his new poetry collection, Parallel Play, at Opposable Thumbs Bookstore on Friday, May 18 at 7:30.

Lightsey Darst serves as coordinator for mnartists.org’s weekly poetry contest, What Light: This Week’s Poem, and worked as an editor on the newly released poetry anthology by the same name.

Spoken word poet Lorena Duarte’s current doings can be tracked down via her MySpace page. You can catch her performing at Kieran’s Pub’s twice-monthly poetry slam: the next poetry slam will be Tuesday, April 24.

Stephanie Ash is a Twin-Cities based writer. She is also a member of the Lit 6 Project and a performer with the popular podcast and stage show at the Ritz Theater in NE Minneapolis, Electric Arc Radio.