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At this site, everyone's a poet;
cool things
By Patti Hartigan, Globe Staff, 02/19/99
In his preface to ''Leaves of Grass,'' Walt Whitman declared, ''The
United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.'' No doubt, that
great champion of democracy would have sung the song of the Internet. Now
there's a Web site, www.favoritepoem.org, that proves that poetry in
cyberspace is not a contradiction in terms.
We're not just talking about printed text, static words on a screen. We're
talking about a Roxbury minister reciting Longfellow and recalling a time when
the news of his death was greatly exaggerated. We're talking about a native of
Alaska reading a poem that pulled her through a long winter's depression.
We're talking about human connection of the most intimate -- albeit
technological -- kind.
Launched last Sunday, the site is the on-line extension of poet laureate
Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project. Pinsky, a Boston University professor,
started the project in 1997, and it was decidedly low-tech at first. He
planned to have a former student wander around Washington, asking tourists to
read poems into a portable tape recorder. Good ideas have a way of growing,
though, and within a year, folks from all over were sending Pinsky their
favorite poems, which will be archived at the Library of Congress next year.
Last April, Pinsky sponsored poetry events in five cities, including
Boston. Ordinary citizens shared the podium with politicians and other public
figures: homemakers and homeless citizens, choreographers and corporate
executives were united through meter and verse. And now their voices can be
heard by millions via streaming audio and video.
''We want, put it this way, to reach a wide net,'' Pinsky said the other
day. ''Poetry is a bodily act; it's also intellectual and emotional, but it
involves a voice that comes out of a body. The Web makes it possible to hear
in the voice the nature of the attachment between the person and the poem.''
The monitor serves as a sort of electronic salon. Listen to Bridgit Stearns
reciting ''Not Waving But Drowning'' by Stevie Smith, explaining how the poem
illustrated her depression. It also inspired hope. ''It has a little bit of a
tone of defiance and bravery and a chirpiness. . . . It encouraged me to keep
thrashing and to keep waving. It helped me.''
Watch Bill T. Jones, that philosopher of dance, choreograph his favorite
poem on the small screen of your media player. See third-grade teacher Che
Hairston perform a piece by Langston Hughes in American Sign Language, hands
speaking through air.
''None of them are the artist. None of them are the expert,'' Pinsky says.
''Yet they take the risk of saying 'I love this poem.' This phenomenon has to
do with community.''
The Web site brings poetic pictures to the masses, creating what Pinsky
calls ''a large-scale time capsule.'' Years from now, you'll be able to hear
the voice of Rev. Michael E. Haynes, the Roxbury minister who designed his
gravestone while awaiting surgery back in 1989. He survived, but the cemetery
mistakenly put the gravestone on his plot, and for a while folks whispered
about his death. That marker is inscribed with his favorite poem, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow's ''A Psalm of Life.'' This couplet sums up the spirit of
the site: ''And departing, leave behind us / Footsteps in the sands of time.''
Pinsky is a people's poet; Andrew Collins, on the other hand, is a
pop-culture junkie. Director of creative content at Thingworld.com, he
''drives traffic and commerce opportunities in unique ways through compelling
digital content.''
Translation: He makes cool stuff.
And what exactly does he make? Well, things called Things. In ad-speak,
Things are ''memorable, interactive, and surprising user experiences optimized
for today's bandwidth.'' In the words of Collins, they ''allow brand owners a
tamperproof way to leverage their assets on line.''
Translation: Things are cool. They're also marketing tools.
A Thing is an interactive screen image that changes when you click on it
with your mouse. Here's an example from the Comedy Central Web site: See Chef
Aid from ''South Park.'' Put your mouse on the image, and he talks: ''Hello
there, children.'' Click, and he sings: ''I'm gonna make love to you, woman.''
Things are digital tchotchkes, electronic ephemera. Fans can download them and
put them on their own home pages, but they have a built-in link back to Comedy
Central's site.
Newton-based Thingworld.com recently won ''Innovation of the Year'' from
the folks at ''Cool Site of the Day.'' In addition to Comedy Central,
Thingworld.com has developed electronic nifties for the New England Patriots
and the World Wrestling Federation; Hasbro Toys and Curious George; David
Bowie and Nintendo's Zelda.
The technology allows media moguls to spread their copyright images among
fans while maintaining a link to their own domains. ''If you shut out your fan
base, you're doing yourself a huge disservice,'' Collins says.
Collins, 30, knows he fits the stereotype of an interactive media guy. As a
pop-culture junkie, he's his own best customer. ''I sort of ooze into the room
on this job, and people think, 'Oh, here's a goofy fan.' '' A pause. ''Isn't
it cool?''
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