POETRY MONTH

	April 19, 2001
	Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky celebrates April as Poetry Month.

ROBERT PINSKY: In this little room at Boston University, Robert Lowell taught a remarkable poetry class. The students included Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and George Starbuck. I wonder, has there ever been a more impressive group of poets gathered as teacher and students? The room itself is not so impressive. I work here, and I know that the chairs creak, the radiator is erratic, and the noise from outside can be annoying. But poetry is an art for the voice and the soul. The physical tools don't need to be splendid. Here is my poem, "Jar of Pens." Sometimes the sight of them Huddled in their cylindrical formation Repels me: humble, erect, Mute and expectant in their Rinsed-out honey crock: my quiver Of detached stingers. (Or, a bouquet Of lies and intentions unspent.) Pilots, drones, workers-the Queen is Cross. Upright lodge Of the toilworthy-gathered At attention though they know All the ink in the world couldn't Cover the first syllable Of a heart's confusion. This fat fountain pen wishes In its elastic heart That I were the farm boy Whose illiterate father Rescued it out of the privy After it fell from the boy's pants: The man digging in boots By lanternlight, down in the pit. Another is straining to call back The characters of the five thousand World languages dead since 1900, Curlicues, fiddleheads, brushstroke Splashes and arabesques, Footprints of extinct species. The father hosed down his boots And leaving them in the barn With his pants and shirt Came into the kitchen, Holding the little retrieved Symbol of symbol-making. O brood of line-scratchers, plastic Scabbards of the soul, you have Outlived the sword-talons and Wingfeathers for the hand.