Viking 1965

humanities When poetry-reciting English faculty mem- bers mounted Paik Blocks benches one grey tr'ebruary noon hour to ,,dispatch a plurafity of birds with a single missle" all Oregon learned that chaste demonstrations can be fun. The unrehearsed poetry reading made great headlines. And the psc profs left it to the audience to figure out whether the perform- ance was a satirical stiletto aimed at Bend's central oregon college's controversial cen- soring of Ginsberg's Howl-or a sanitized spoof of the later public protest reading of Howl by University of Oregon faculty. As F'ed Waller said in his introduction, ,,We are confident that the purity of our motives in undertaking to dedicate this reading to 'The Virtuous Muse' will be self-evid.ent..." Howard Burnham was author and declaimer of the show's title pieee, ,,Commemorative ode: rn Praise of the Beneficent Blandish- ments of Poesy Conceived, if the Expression may be Forgiven, in propriety. . . Howl, Heavenly Muse ! Who on Parnassian Slope Is now invoked by Ginsberg, not by Pope: Eugenic Protests on the Wind ascend, And make thy Seat to Waver, if not Bend. A lesser task we here propose today, The Anxious Soul to calm , and Fears Allay. The proper poem soothes, it will be seen, Like Preparation If, or Unguentine. One sad fact only has our Conscience Stirr'd: "Poet"-alas !-is a four-letter word.