Great Stand up poetry is probably not at all what you have been conditioned to believe it is.

Somehow people think great poets are word mathematicians and/or give you a good feeling by playing on your sentimentality.

First we will see what Plato says about the great poet

He says that an ideal state (like there is such a thing) is to follow these instructions when it bans a dangerous (great) poet.

"If any such man will come to us to show us his art, we shall kneel down before him as a rare and holy and delectable being: but we shall not permit his to stay. We will anoint him with myrrh and set a garland of wool upon his head, and send him away to another city."

Plato goes on to say that all great evil comes from a fullness of nature and not an emptiness as we would believe. He defines mediocrity as the evil force in the world.

Who would fit Plato’s definition of the great poet? Jim Jones. He used words so eloquently that he convinced 600 people to commit suicide with him.

We can also define, as a great poet, Cola di Rienzo , a Roman, in the middle of the fourteenth century. He was arrested by the rebels that were about to kill him. He asked for a hearing. He began to sway the people with his speech. An Artisan was afraid of his eloquent speech. Words coming from him were like magic. They were going to sway the rioters to spare him. The Artisan quickly thrust a sword into his stomach. He apparently was not a great enough poet to convince them all to spare him. Still Great he was.   Great enough to convince many and scare the Artisan into killing him before he could convince more.

So what is a great poet? One that can use words or other sounds to move the masses or the individual. He is only good if he is dangerous. He somehow understands the psychology of the individual and the group and can use it to make them do as he wishes.

Now does the great poet have to do things that harm the audience or individual? No, and he normally will not. (It actually is only a value judgment based on Christian morals/ethics that Jim Jones hurt his people when talking them into suicide).

The great poet has the capacity to do good or evil (Again good and evil are merely contemporary Christian moral/ethical judgments). In a state of anarchy good and evil will define themselves.

In the end a great poet is a full, rich member of the species. One that is learned enough (knowledge gained through words, sight, touch, smell, taste) to understand his fellow being. He then can use the sound part of our species and environmental influence to manipulate the species.

The greatest poet of our century? Jim Jones.

To better understand a stand up poet we can also ask who is the greatest non poet of our century? There is no question that it is Harry S. Truman. Whereas, Jim Jones killed 600 people with their consent (They actually killed themselves but contemporary culture says Jim Jones killed them) Harry S. Truman vaporized 20,000 plus at Hiroshima and another 20,000 plus a Nagasaki. He did not do it with eye to eye contact. He did not do it with words to the participants (the Hiroshima citizens). He did it with threats of force. (The makers and delivers of the atomic bomb would have been imprisoned or executed had they not done as Truman ordered). He did not do it openly. He used total deceit in communicating with his citizens and the citizens of Hiroshima.

Harry S. Truman was the greatest non poet of our time or might we say the least poet.

ã Jack Bowman