April is National Poetry Month. How are you going to celebrate? O: The Oprah Magazine suggests you update your wardrobe, in a article subtitled “Modeling the latest looks, eight rising poets express their dynamic personal styles—and show you how to cultivate your own.” I found out about this unusual way to celebrate from this article by David Orr. (I always enjoy Orr’s columns on poetry for the NY Times, you can read past ones here.) Orr starts out his column about the O Magazine article
The signs of the coming apocalypse are many, but none are starker than this Web headline in the April issue of O: The Oprah Magazine: “Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.” Yes. Spring fashion. Modeled. By rising young poets. There follows a photomontage of attractive younger women — some of whom are rising poets mostly in the “I get up in the morning” sense, but all of whom certainly look poetic — in outfits costing from $472 to $5,003. This is all part of O’s special issue celebrating National Poetry Month, edited by the noted verse aficionado Maria Shriver and including interviews with “all-star readers” like Bono, Ashton Kutcher, the gossip columnist Liz Smith and someone named James Franco, who is apparently an actor.
Read the entire column here. The photo to the left is of poet Tara Bracco, taken by Ruven Afandor.
It’s not the writing, it’s what you wear to the reading. Which why poets always take their big advance checks shopping.