In spite of the London Olympics 2012 not sporting bare adult men nor leather-based thongs as did the original Greek Olympic Online games, the enthusiasm that spectators and admirers yearn to categorical remains, century after century.
At these historic video games, poems to honour the athletes were being cried and yelled alongside screaming oxen as bovine limbs were lopped off to burn off in an honorary gesture to Zeus. Although athletes now have on clothes (some extra than other folks), we do even now have the gestures to gods, the “bonfire”, and we undoubtedly nonetheless have the poetry.
The formal version of poetry for London 2012 is the spatial installation of poems in the Olympic Village (winningwordspoetry.com). This is not a new principle. The Greeks present a robust historical root to graffiti, chiselling absent at stones and firing clay artefacts to heap praise on the athletic prowess of the contenders, whether in drawings or text. Nevertheless, the best honour was for a family members member of a successful athlete to generate a poem on the location, a praise singer not ordained by hierarchy but relatively by virtue of being linked to the fastest, strongest competitor of a race. Envision how extraordinary it would be, if household members have been given the option to specific them selves in the second their son or daughter excels as the ideal in the globe consider how genuine that praise track would be. Envision if that instant was much more honoured than any unveiling of any slab of concrete. And then miraculously, unexpectedly it occurred. Specifically as the Greeks, hundreds of years and hundreds of years in the past had demanded it – not a reporter, not a famed poet, not a politician, but a father became an internationally renowned praise poet when he expressed so considerably adore and pleasure at observing his son win a gold medal.
Astonishment in the minute and long right after, and then the questions: What is it about Bert Le Clos? What is it about this poetic second that captured the environment? Far more than the apparent immediacy and realness, or the anti-hierarchy-cultish skill of the everyday just about everywhere to make the obscure go “viral”, there is perhaps a much more simple reason at enjoy. I believe there lies in all of us, in our most hidden and complex depths, the craving to be beloved by our fathers and our mothers, to be praised by them in an exhilarating way. How significantly additional meaningful to have your father stand up, in front of thousands and thousands of persons to communicate the words and phrases “I appreciate you”, than to have a stranger compose “a hundred tongues, 1-voiced the moon bronze or silver, sunlight gold” (Translating the British 2012, Carol Anne Duffy), and then look at all over again why Bert Le Clos garnered so significantly more interest than static installations by not known poets, lifeless or alive.
Ironically, the title “Poet Laureate” is a title akin to “people’s poet”, but it appears as if the individuals have decided on their own praise singer to honour bodily and psychological prowess at these Olympics, London 2012. The people have decided on Bert Le Clos for the title “Poet Laureate”. How frequently it transpires that people use organised situations to evaluate the developmental status of civilization and her citizens, nonetheless so often what we close up recording is how much our dreams have stayed the identical.
And where does this depart aspiring writers and poets? Do we toss in the towel, and skulk residence with our tails concerning our legs as newbie praise singers steal our thunder? Most likely, with some luck, some of us will be influenced to ignite the Olympic flame in our personal breasts, and permit authentic poetry and praise music stream from our hearts.