Missouri Poet Laureate: Walter Bargen

Woo! Missouri finally has a poet laureate (by the way, that's a really fun word to type - laureate), Walter Bargen (here's his pathetic website). Well, with Gov. Matt Blunt not seeking reelection, at least he left something for us to remember him by. He was so cute, too.

Press release announcing Walter Bargen as Missouri Poet Laureate.

Bargen's from Ashland, too, which is about 20 min. south of Columbia. I have fond memories of Ashland, both from Young Life and driving past it (the overpass signaling us to start praying for club or whatever we were going to in JC) and from when some friends and I went to a real live rodeo there. It was out of control. Definitely one of the the strangest cultural experience that I have ever had.

Here's some of his prose from his book "The Feast"

"This is what happens when he stands face to face with no, and no the true genius of the world. No, he won't sit on the potty, and so he sits wrapped in his mess for the rest of the day. No, he won't struggle with putting on his galoshes on a rainy morning, and so he walks to school barefoot, all the other kids laughing. No, he won't stand on the chair, lean among the flowers to kiss the face of someone who once loved to playfully cheat his at cards and torment him in other small delicious ways, then his frightened face is shoved up against death. No, he won't give the older boys his jacket, and after school is chased all the way home, barely staying ahead of the heavy swinging belt buckles. No, he won't eat his broccoli or spinach, or anything green that looks like the squashed insides of a caterpillar, and he falls asleep at the table, then falls out of the chair. No, he cannot say no, but he does. No, he won't to the barbarous city Nineveh, but instead heads for Tarshish, across a storm-riddled sea where he draws the short straw and is thrown overboard for God-only-knows-what-reason, and ends up living inside a great fish. Yes, no is the genius of the world."

Silly Mizzou.edu article on Bargen: "Poetry gets Wings".