Monagasque Poets Poem by gershon hepner

MONAGASQUE POETS


If you are ever in Monaco
you possibly may find a taco,
and this would be far less hard
than finding anywhere a bard,
however much you ask,
who plies fine words in Monegasque.
You'll never hear a single word
of verse, like those you might have heard
concerning figs served à la carte
in bed, or else about a fart,
in bygone days when poets who
spoke Monegasque would love to coo.
Such verses melted like the snow
of yesteryears, and like the farts men blow
they've gone, and haven't left a trace,
which natives don't find a disgrace,
for all Monacans claim to be
poets not with words they scribble,
but with lives they live, as free
as verse of those who do not quibble
about the need for metered rhyme
when poetically they wax,
too busy having a great time,
while avoiding income tax.
In Monaco they're all rich,
and those who're rich quite simply don't
do poetry, a fatal hitch
for those who want to be, but won't.


Jeanne Whalen writes about a poetic crisis in Monaco ("Monaco, a Principality Known for Its Royals, Can't Find a Poet to Anoint: As Cultural Olympiad Looms, Officials Go Through Hoops to Find Would-Be Wordsmiths; Inspiration From Ode to a Fig, " WSJ,6/9- 10/12) :

Early this year, Monaco's foreign-affairs department couriered a letter with a pressing request to the principality's head of cultural affairs: Could he rustle up a local poet? The government needed one to participate in London's Cultural Olympiad, an arts festival that will coincide this summer with the 2012 Olympic Games. This two-square-kilometers of coastline on the French Riviera is one of only nine nations that hasn't been able to produce a poet to take part in the London event.
The others are Brunei, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, the Central African Republic, Liechtenstein, the Seychelles and the Pacific islands of Palau and Vanuatu—mostly tiny countries where the event's organizers expected the search to be hard. Monaco, population 31,000, 'fits into that category…but the fact that it is in Europe makes it surprising, ' says Katie Toms, a spokeswoman for London's Southbank Centre, which is helping coordinate the summit.
The task of finding a Monacan poet fell to Jean-Charles Curau, Monaco's director of cultural affairs, who sought suggestions from local writing groups and an organization dedicated to preserving the native language, Monegasque. A local newspaper, the Monaco Times, joined the search, publishing a call-out for any poets to represent Monaco at the event. Judith Gantley, administrator of Monaco's Princess Grace Irish Library, sent the article to several contacts, hoping to smoke out the local talent. 'We haven't found anybody, ' Ms. Gantley said from the library's cool corridors in Monaco's hilltop Old Town, a short walk from the 16th-century palace where Princess Grace lived with Prince Rainier III.
Theories abound to explain the tax haven's paucity of poets. One of the favorites: too many rich people. 'Rich people don't write poetry, ' says Leontia Flynn, an Irish poet who spent several months in Monaco in 2005 as a guest of the Princess Grace library. Monaco, she says, is a place people go 'for tax reasons.' Poetry 'is never going to make you money and it's very hard to do, ' she says.

6/10/12 #10465