Ask Samuel Hazo, poet and director of the International Poetry Forum, a question and there’s a good chance he’ll offer you an answer in the form of a poem.
Take a question like, What do you think about Pittsburgh’s diminishing population? And Hazo may ask if you want to hear a poem he’s written, “Signs of Life in a Sundown City,” and begin to recite, “We number less than half than of what we were six decades back./The young look elsewhere for their lives./The old grow older and die./Mansions of a long dead gentry calcify like skulls./Museums lease from millionaires what artists painted while they starved... ”
Samuel Hazo is director of the International Poetry Forum
Make no mistake—your question, whatever it is, might not be memorable or profound, but when the answer is poetic, it will be unforgettable.
The International Poetry Forum (IPF), which has been in existence for more than 40 years, is proof of the staying power of poetry. Launched in 1966, through a grant from the A.W. Mellon Educational Charitable and Trust, the purpose of the IPF is to give a platform to poets and performers from anywhere in the world to speak their poems directly to the public because poetry, like music, is meant to be heard.
“Reading sheet music is not music,” say Hazo, who was Pennsylvania’s poet laureate from 1993 to 2003. “Reading a poem is not the full experience of the poem. That doesn’t happen until you hear it. That’s what we’ve done for 41 years or so. We’ve brought in the most significant poets in the last part of the 20th century, and so far in this century, from 38 countries, including the United States.”
The IPF has also hosted actors like Gregory Peck and Grace Kelly, as well as politicians, including Eugene McCarthy, who gave dramatic readings of original works. And Singers Judy Collins and Nana Mouskouri have graced IPF’s stage. It’s also provided a stage for dance, like Hazo’s original work, Mano a Mano, which was originally performed in Pittsburgh and then was adapted and taken off-Broadway to the Joyce Theater for sold-out performances.
In 2002, at the invitation of then-Carlow President Sister Grace Ann Geibel, Hazo relocated the IPF office, and donated the entire IPF archives, to Carlow University. Housed on the fifth fl oor of Grace Library, the IPF archives—42 years of tapes, videotapes, scrapbooks, and memorabilia—are property of the University in perpetuity. (In addition, many of the recordings can ultimately be heard and viewed on the IPF Web site, as tapes and recordings are being converted to Web format.)
“I told Grace Ann I had the opportunity locate the archives wherever I wanted to and she said she wanted them at Carlow,” says Hazo, who is also professor emeritus at Duquesne University.
How many schools can you name that have a complete archive of a major art organization on their campus, plus an operational office?
In addition to performances, IPF’s Poets-in-Person program brings poetry to the schools. Each year, depending on funding, local poets conduct workshops, give poetry readings, or lead discussions for students from elementary grades through high school. The program concludes the school year with a one-day symposium for all students featuring a nationally renowned poet.
A few weeks ago, Hazo met with students at the The Campus School of Carlow University where he asked them to think of something they had heard in the past 48 hours.
“I asked them to tell me one, just one thing that they couldn’t forget even if they tried,” he says. “Very few kids, even though they were all very bright, could think of anything. And that’s true of all of us. It’s because there’s no capacity for the appreciation of poetry.
“There has to be something that takes you out of your circumstances, spiritually. You go to a football game and when it’s over it’s over. You go to a movie, and that’s good for an evening out. But going to a poetry reading by a good poet...that’s bread and wine.”
Since 1966, Hazo has done more than succeed in fulfi lling IPF’s mission. And as long as the money keeps coming in, says Hazo, the IPF will continue to do what it’s always done—more of the same and just as well.
“Ninety-eight percent of what you hear every day is prose, or what you read, and once you read it, it’s over. It’s there for the day, and then you wrap yesterday’s steak bones in it and throw it away, but you don’t do that with a poem,” says Hazo.
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