April is National Poetry Month? Some kind of rant is sure to follow on that rhetorical question, no? No, because it's not truly a question, it's up-talk, that elocution pollution that's percolating up to public radio? Not hip, it's hip-flop?
And the questions? continue throughout? Finally, the outcue on up-talk leaves the listener not weightless but waiting?
Mr Beatty presents some good lines and a premise with merit, but fails to pursue it beyond the obvious. "National Poetry Month Commentary" sounds like a first draft. Turn the page -- but don't close the book. His other work is stronger, and I think we'll hear more from Beatty in future as he finds his voice in that odd space between book and bar called public radio.
I do however hope he'll eschew the music beds of "Barry, Bob & Me" and "A June Commentary", which are the audio equivalent of graphics in magazines – perhaps pretty at first glance, but which can never change the words themselves. Brian Beatty has good words and honesty, and that will out in the end.
Review of National Poetry Month Commentary
Geo Beach
Posted on March 07, 2005 at 07:46 PM
April is National Poetry Month? Some kind of rant is sure to follow on that rhetorical question, no? No, because it's not truly a question, it's up-talk, that elocution pollution that's percolating up to public radio? Not hip, it's hip-flop?
And the questions? continue throughout? Finally, the outcue on up-talk leaves the listener not weightless but waiting?
Mr Beatty presents some good lines and a premise with merit, but fails to pursue it beyond the obvious. "National Poetry Month Commentary" sounds like a first draft. Turn the page -- but don't close the book. His other work is stronger, and I think we'll hear more from Beatty in future as he finds his voice in that odd space between book and bar called public radio.
I do however hope he'll eschew the music beds of "Barry, Bob & Me" and "A June Commentary", which are the audio equivalent of graphics in magazines – perhaps pretty at first glance, but which can never change the words themselves. Brian Beatty has good words and honesty, and that will out in the end.