Truth beyond Plato, Proust, Picasso, or Pinksy

The world is full of accidental poets. You can find them anywhere if you look, and searching for accidental poetry is a time-honored hipster tradition. Accidental poetry stands in stark contrast to the rarefied musings of poets laureate. An accidental poet may not mean to create true poetry, yet he or she reveals intrinsic truths where they are least expected. Consider the following chain of letters, reproduced verbatim but-for the addition of a “Dear Hipster” out of respect for the format, sent by an accidental poet over the course of the past six weeks:

Dear Hipster:

I went to Dartmouth and listened to records like the Grateful Dead “Europe ‘72”. The College taught me culture enrichment like the great Christmas Concert at the Hopkins Center Spaulding Auditorium. Mel Snyder taught Psychology 7 - “Helplessness” in which a text can inform you that an experiment where rats are shocked with electricity quit and cannot do anything, and I suggested that Neil Young’s song “Helpless” be the theme song of the course. The professors of Dartmouth’s Psychology Department threatened me with hated evil guns and I screamed.

I joined the Tabard fraternity at Dartmouth and I did not like that members of the club threatened me with guns. The Tabard fraternity Brothers could not handle food and the beer on tap made me vomit. When it was required to sit with joiners of the Tabard at Ma Thayer Dartmouth dining then I refused many poison offers and the brothers I was interested in being with threatened me with guns and I screamed and I was charged by Dartmouth with “trespassing.” That is exclusive privileged elitist rich education.

I prepare for 1972 Park Synagogue Bar Mitzvah at Cleveland Heights Ohio and I send invitations to appropriate familiar personalities including Dianne Feinstein (Di) and Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan and Liza Minelli who is Judy Garland’s daughter and Danny Thomas whose daughter is Milo Thomas. I plan to go on from Hebrew School which is not state school to private Dartmouth College which is Ivy League selective high-class elitist respected highly regarded prestigious preparation for privileged success and I join the Tabard fraternity.

Mentor Harbor Yachting Club of Greater Cleveland Christmas Party — Not quite the Myron “Mike” Baker Furniture Land of Ohio Christmas Party at The Theatrical Grill on Short Vincent in Cleveland, the elitist gentile borrowers socialize conjuring powers of fund-raising for security forces for screams of involuntary reactions commenting on hawkish extremist militarism, but anyways I enjoyed shaking hands with television’s Mr. JING-A-LING at Tower City at Public Square which is The Square, at Halle’s 7th floor near the statue of Moses Cleaveland.

I bought Perry Como’s Christmas Album and Pat Boone’s Christmas Album. I bought Paul Anka’s Christmas Album. I bought Frank Sinatra’s Christmas Album. I bought Elvis Presley’s Christmas Album. I bought Nat King Cole’s Christmas Album. I bought George Beverly Shea’s liked album. I bought The Oak Ridge Boys great album.

— Scott B.

Right on, my friend. If you had asked a question, I would have answered, but I’m glad you didn’t. I feel there is kind of truth here that one can never find in Plato, Proust, Picasso, or Pinksy. It may not be a greater truth, but it may be a deeper, simpler truth. We need accidental poetry because sometimes we can discern the current of the world running through the musings of a stranger.