Blank that Verse: America’s Got Talent

I’m enjoying the way the editors of America’s Got Talent slice up their footage. When the auditions came to Florida, the montages gave us (a) people hoping to profess talent announcing themselves to the jury and (b) shots of the crowd booing them off. We were often spared the actual act.

And how the crowd boos! They make their whole bodies into an X, and then chant rhythmically as they pump that X, thus personifying rejection.

One of the poor souls at whom they bayed was a poet. I think he was called Bradley. I wish we could recall his name. Clearly the fact that he wrote poetry doomed him from the start. You could see Piers Morgan smirking at the very idea that someone should appear at a talent show as a poet. These people would have given Seamus Heaney the hook.

Now, for millennia poets have competed against each other. Poets aren’t just poets, after all. In ancient times, they were bards, storytellers, even prophets. Allen Ginsberg even wrote a longish poem called “Contest of the Bards” – it’s about an old bard and a new bard who get it on. Which makes sense, since rivalries between poet/prophets were the first talent contests (see: Eisteddfod).

Really.

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were essentially poets who competed against other poets.

Bradley’s poems (to his ex-girlfriend, unfortunately) were barely given the chance to compete. Did he get through even part of a poem? We’ll never know.

I should add that not all of America has a fidgety attention span about poetry. Once in Brooklyn (by accident) I sat through poetry readings hoping that something would hit the heart, and how patiently I’ve sat with agog, silent audiences who’ve never once expressed disappointment. But there are miles between Florida and Brooklyn. Given the choice between a sestina and some lady who can handwhistle “Greensleeves”, the public has made its choice.