If you already are an Andrei Codrescu aficionado, have read any of his books (26 titles are available in The Seattle Public Library Catalog), listen to his weekly commentaries on NPR, then you’ll delight in The Poetry Lesson, his latest publication by the Princeton University Press that recently hit bookstores and libraries.
One may hope to enter Andrew Codrescu’s poetry class and walk out a poet. Like in any good class, you’ll be called upon, given an assignment and a list of requisites to help you write. You’ll be allowed to use Codrescu’s “Tools of Poetry:” a goatskin notebook for writing down dreams, Mont Blanc fountain pen, a Chinese coin or a stone in your pocket for rubbing, a little man at the back of your head, to name a few. Add to this poetic arsenal any or all of “The Ten Muses of Poetry:” Mishearing, Misunderstanding, Mistranslating, Mismanaging, Mislaying, Misreading, Misappropriating clichés, Misplacing objects belonging to roommates or lovers, Misguided thoughts at inappropriate times, and Mississippi (the river) and, who knows, you may be on your way…
The Poetry Lesson is not a walk on a wild side; it’s the toughest assignment you’ll ever get – for it takes a lifetime, if not longer, to become a poet. And, as the author adroitly, albeit ironically, remarks, in this affair you will have no say; that belongs to posterity that will judge your efforts, for “most poets are dead.”
The length of the book is carefully measured out to last as long as a regular class. Should it take longer, the class will take a break to pee and return to the loftiest thoughts of getting acquainted with their ghost-companions. After all, who wouldn’t want to keep company with the likes of Rainier Maria Rilke, James Merrill, or William Burroughs?
Generously seasoned with humor, Codrescu’s personal recollections and predilections, the masterfully conducted Poetry Lesson is one lesson you don’t want to skip.
~ Leszek, Central Library
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