Piece Description

Maybe it was because the convention had just ended. Maybe it was something else. But the air was more charged than usual at the Boston Poetry Massacre this year. This marathon of poetry readings, sixty or so, all packed into one weekend, is an annual tradition here. Since it began in 1998, it's had many organizers, and many names: The Boston Poetry Conference, The Boston Alternative Poetry Conference, The Boston Poetry Marathon and last year's more utilitarian "60 at MIT." This year's title, "massacre," fit the impression that everyone was reciting their work as though their life depended on it. The event began just hours after John Kerry had delivered his acceptance speech to delegates at the Democratic National Convention, just a few miles down the road from Wordsworth Books in Cambridge, MA, where the readings were held. All week we'd been hearing that Kerry needed to give the speech of his lifetime. And whether he did or not, many of the poets at the Massacre seemed to give the readings of their lifetimes, John Mulrooney included. Last year, Mulrooney began his reading with a quote from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (or D.H. Rumsfeld as he called him), lovingly reciting the words as though it were an Emily Dickinson poem. So this year, when he got behind the podium and said "I'd like to dedicate my reading to the department of homeland security" I thought he was joking. But what followed was one of the most haunting, relentless and evocative poems I have ever heard, equal parts Dylan Thomas and Allen Ginsberg, all sewn together with the refrain "If you see something, say something," which seemed to gather new meaning every time he said it. It occurs to me that that's a poet's job, saying something when they see something. They don't need to be asked. So when they *are* asked, the result is going to sound something like this.