Come Meet Minnesota Prose Poet Louis Jenkins

Minnesota Poet To Bring His Wit and Words to Greenville

Prose poet Louis Jenkins will tell you right up front, "A lot of poetry is boring, and stupid—self-indulgent." If he could do one thing to help improve poetry’s image and reputation, it would be to help both “audiences and poets to know the difference between good poetry and bad.” Because good poetry, poetry that enlightens, surprises, clarifies, empathizes, or delights—five elements Jenkins lists as essential characteristics—is pure pleasure. And “if it's not pleasure, it's not worth reading," declares this Minnesota man of words who looks a bit like Santa Claus and whose work has been described as "where scripture meets K-mart."

Louis Jenkins, favorite literary son of Duluth, Minnesota, will be bringing his poetic insights, wit, and wisdom to upstate South Carolina in a couple of weeks, courtesy of the Greenville County Library System and a grant from the Southern Arts Federation. A free reading on Friday night, November 6th, will be open to the general public, and a limited number of spaces are available in a workshop on Saturday, November 7th, to those who preregister. Jenkins will also be doing workshops with high school students at Greenville's public fine arts high school and with adult students at the Greenville Literacy Association while he’s in town.

Like more than a few before him, Jenkins admits that when he first became interested in writing in high school, he envisioned fame and wealth and lots of women. “It never happened,” he says. “There’s no money in [poetry], no fame, no beautiful women.” And as if poetry weren’t already the redheaded stepchild of literary genres, Jenkins' preference for writing prose poetry set him even further away from the mainstream. But apparently, there are a lot of us drawn to those outer edges of poetic tastes; reviewers use words such as “luminous,” “delightful,” “teasing,” and “like candy” to describe this man’s poetic paragraphs, which typically focus on everyday life and familiar events. And Jenkins can’t really claim he’s earned no fame: his books (number thirteen will be released any day now) are consistent award-winners, he is readily identified and revered as the current master of the prose poem form, and there’s even an off-Broadway play in the works for next year, based on his book, Nice Fish.

A favorite of Garrison Keillor, who has featured Jenkins' work more than thirty times on his public radio program, "The Writers Almanac," Jenkins has been telling stories in “brief, rectangular paragraphs” for more than thirty years. "Form isn't that important to me," he explains, adding that there really are no rules about what defines a prose poem. Though he also writes "line poetry," as he calls it, he is drawn to the prose poetry format because "it's handy and user friendly. The main thing about prose is its flexibility; it allows me to use the language I would use in everyday conversation. Or not."

Prose poetry has been around since the 1800s; some would argue since Biblical days. It fell out of favor, enjoyed a resurgence in the 1950s, and interest seems to be increasing once again. Jenkins, who finds even free verse somewhat restrictive, is unfazed. "If you know nothing about poetry and you want to know the difference between poetry, prose poetry, and prose, then you should do some reading,” he suggests. “If after much reading you still cannot tell the difference, then it isn’t important.”

What is important for poetry is that it be compelling enough to be read. “There’s a lot going on linguistically,” in a poem, Jenkins concedes, but you “don’t want that to be obvious. I want the language to sound as though someone were telling a story. All poetry, I think, comes down to storytelling. But to make it readable, the poem has to enlist the reader, so that the reader actually participates and shares in the emotion.” Passion makes poetry interesting, as does atmosphere, recognition of familiar experiences and, most importantly, brevity. “Writing loses some of its punch if it goes on too long,” Jenkins cautions.

Jenkins asserts that, regardless of how fads and forms come and go, poetry will always be with us. “It satisfies, momentarily, some longing in us that cannot be satisfied elsewhere, and I believe people will always read and write poetry.”

To that end, the Greenville County Library invites you to come meet Jenkins and enjoy his wit and wisdom on November 6th and 7th. In case you aren't familiar with the work of this acclaimed poet, here's a classic example:

THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY

There might be some change on top of the dresser at the back, and we should check the washer and the dryer. Checkunder the floor mats of the car. The couch cushions. I have some books and CDs I could sell, and there are a couple bigbags of aluminum cans in the basement, only trouble is thatthere isn’t enough gas in the car to get around the block. I’mexpecting a check sometime next week, which, if we are careful,will get us through to payday. In the meantime with your one—dollar rebate check and a few coins we have enough to walk to the store and buy a quart of milk and a newspaper. On secondthought, forget the newspaper.

From Sea Smoke (Holy Cow! Press)

###
Netwest member Jayne Jaudon Ferrer is the author of four books

and host of the website www.YourDailyPoem.com.