Poetry in the Computer Age

foreword by Kevin Ridolfi

Poet Doug Tanoury of Detroit, Michigan recently published a collection of poems entitled "Detroit Poems". Why is this seemingly small fact noteworthly? Well, Tanoury has chosen to help continue a trend that must have the more traditional and discriminating members of poetry's inner circle muttering succinct and descriptive stanzas of bewilderment. He has published his poetry on his own. On the web.

Perhaps it is just me, but it seems that proponents of the written word have a very thinly veiled fear of online publishing because of the science fiction implications. Their school of thought is actually quite logical on the surface: an over-use of computers and televisions as reliable forms of communication will force traditional print mediums to disappear. Fall by the wayside. Go the way of the quill and parchment. Join smoke signals as tools laughed at by kids in future history classes - ha, remember the old days when they read books? Pass the remote.

Of course, this paranoid view is absurd. Ray Bradbury's world that shuns the printed word is too X-Files to ever occur. The online publishing community isn't hatching some great scheme to rid the world of all things paper. But, rather, is expanding the written word and promoting literature in all its forms.

What Tanoury and others like him are doing is keeping their options open and presenting their work to a growing, and world wide, audience. Instead of waiting long months for that tiny, form rejection from the typical literary journals, these online writers are taking the bull by the horns and creating their own exposure.Is there a better form of encouragement than positive or creatively constructive feedback?

In short, the internet isn't killing off the old media, but rather is acting to create and foster interest. Interest that will shape and benefit both the readers and the artists. Every now and then shaking the establishment is the best way to achieve growth. Just ask all the painters and writers throughout history who have dared to invent and develop new styles of their craft.

Promise
For Mary

The priest read the gospel and we stood
Together in the pew listening to the
Story of the widow who married seven brothers
And the riddle put to Jesus:

"In the resurrection, Master, whose wife
will she be?"

And Jesus answered "No one's wife."
For in the afterlife you become
Like angels. And I thought
"Pure Spirit" as I touched her
Standing next to me,
"Without body or gender,
Consciousness without sex"

We looked at each other,
Still standing,
She smiled and I smiled back,
No longer hearing the priest read,
I leaned to whisper,
Smelling her hair
As I moved my lips
Toward her ear:

"In the resurrection, I'll be
Your husband still...
I promise."

Blushing Sunrise

As in Homer's Iliad
Dawn is a golden haired girl,
Painting the sky over the far
Eastside

Above wood frame homes
Needing gutters and new roofs
As a boy watches
Alone

At the sunrise window
Of his bedroom as daylight
Creeps above the elms on
Holcomb street.