Transcripts

SPEAKER: One of the main ones is that it is a kind of entertainment that is available to people who aren't able to do something a little more elaborate. Poetry is a kind of thing that people can share with each other without having to have a group like Minnesota poetry come out loud, come around. We're just showing them what can be done with it.

But more important, I think we're dedicated to the principle that poetry has been sabotaged by the educational system, that it's been monopolized by schools. The reason why most people don't like poetry, in spite of the fact that the best poetry that's ever been produced in this country is probably being produced nowadays, and we've got more poets than we've ever had before.

The audiences are still relatively small, and we think that that's because people have been taught that poetry is something that's studied in school, and it's something that's dissected. And you get the notion that poets are people who don't really say what they mean. You know, the way poetry is studied in school, it's always, well, what did he really mean when he said that? Well, we're trying to get around all of those kinds of stereotypes and to bring poetry back into the mainstream of the life of the community.