Missourians are currently embroiled in controversy over their official state poem. The current poem proposed is terrible, but then so are most official state poems. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked several St. Louis poets to weigh in on the issue. Here's poet and River Styx editor Richard Newman's unedited contribution to the debate.  

Richard Newman

Our State Poem

An Official State Poem is important to Missouri because poetry is important to Missourians. In the state of Missouri, poets are practically household names!

And since poetry holds such importance in our state, we should resolve the current State Poem Crisis by holding a Poetry Tournament.   I already hold a position at one of our state's higher educational facilities where I do nothing except write poems, and I'm certain the school would give me a six-figure bonus if my State Poem made it to the Final Four.

Perhaps there'll be a poetry press conference. Flash-bulbs a-flashin', paparazzi a-poppin', a bouquet of microphones close to the mouth of the poet.

“Mr. Newman, do you plan on making any last-minute revisions to your poem before next week?” a press person will press me.

“Well,” I'll tease, “I was considering switching metaphors. . . .”

The poetry correspondents gasp, “A metaphor! A metaphor!”

“I've thought about discussing Interstate 70, that long highway connecting St. Louis to Kansas City, and all those billboards, the ones that advertise Jesus on one side and porn shops on the other, the very billboards Missouri voters voted to approve, and how if you drive fast enough it's like driving though a giant deck of shuffling cards.” There will be an all-around sigh of relief akin to the one you might hear in an I-70 rest stop after several hundred miles of BP coffee.

Other poets will opine at press conferences, too—from abstract academic poets, who sometimes will seem to appear before the microphone and sometimes not, to raving street poets, whose earthy smell can make your teeth curl. More Missourians will bet on poets than play the Missouri Lottery! School children will recite the State Poem every morning and marvel, “When I grow up I want to be a poet!” Poets will appear on talk shows, and poetry groupies will camp on the their doorsteps. Grocery stores will hawk poetry books in the check out lanes along with National Enquirer and other guilty impulse items.

State Bird, State Flower, State Tree—why not a State Poem? Do we have an Official State Concealed Weapon already? Is there an Official State Casserole, too? I make a pretty mean tuna casserole.

I can hear the press conference now: “Mr. Newman, Mr. Newman, how do you get your casseroles so cheesey?”

 

Richard Newman likes romantic candlelit dinners, cuddling on the couch, long walks on the beach, and boxes and boxes of gravy.