I’ve come to take for granted so much--billboards and product placements, sponsored posts disguised as honest-to-goodness journalism, apps making me the product I can search and share and grow enraged, for free--why should a poetry podcast not be brought to me by the all-electric Nissan Ariya, a "fiercely beautiful vehicle, empowering you with an architectural, lounge-like atmosphere"? Poems are a kind of advertisement, too: Shakespeare hawking love and betrayal, Eliot selling me a story about a broken, breaking world. To the marketing execs at whatever agency realized I am the perfect potential EV buyer, might I suggest we give up the pretense, versify every commercial: Ballads for Bud Light, Ghazals for Geico Insurance, Villanelles for Viagra, Madrigals for McDonald's. Now, whenever sadness hits, I make a beeline for the shopping cart, braindead mariner, addict whose wallet opens like a door with the hinges blown off; and the scribbled poem which falls out may as well be gold bullion in a store that only takes Visa or Mastercard, thanks for understanding. -
Check out The Slowdown, a Production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and...Nissan?
