Dear Dirty America

Jack Spicer:

This ocean, humiliating in its disguises
Tougher than anything.
No one listens to poetry.    The ocean
Does not mean to be listened to.    A drop
Or crash of water.    It means
Nothing.
It
Is bread and butter
Pepper and salt.    The death
That young men hope for.    Aimlessly
It pounds the shore.    White and aimless signals.    No
One listens to poetry. (from Thing Language, 1)

Spicer was one of America’s greatest poets, and probably one of its least understood humans. At times, he seemed insane. Society compromised his poetry and politics because of his alcoholism. Spicer was a man who refused to sell out to standardization, capitalism’s mediocrity, and the constant pressure to conform.

You can get a lot more of Spicer’s ideas and work here. Honor the poets! As Homer’s epics told us. For it is the Poet who immortalizes the heroes. History only exists through the Bard.