This past weekend I went to the biennial Dodge Poetry Festival in Stanhope, NJ. Just forty-five minutes from the rural-ish town (cows > people) where I grew up, this poetry festival is one of the largest (the largest?) in North America. It always features a few poet laureates and other publicly-ordained-people of poetic fabulousness (Mark Doty, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Franz Wright, to name a mere four).

As I walked around the festival this year, I noticed that poetry festival attendees, mostly middle-aged women, are comprised of two main fashion-groups (male-poetry-enthusiast fashion is a different animal!):

  1. Those who do not know how to dress, and obviously do not care that they do not know how to dress. (Example: Trousers. Sweatshirt with large word on it. The most functional shoes possible. Glasses.)
  2. Those who dress in earth-tones and shop at Coldwater Creek.

Interestingly, both sets contain more long-haired middle-aged women than the American population as a whole. That hair is either: Long, straight, and unlayered. Or long, frizzy, and sort-of-tamed with a silver barrette. (In case you are wondering, I knew that earth-tones would be in at the Poetry Festival, so I arrived aptly dressed in one of the few neutral colored outfits I own.)

Anyway, enough with the stereotyping! Wait, actually, not enough with the stereotyping. First, I have to provide my guide for your How-To-Dress-Like-Someone-Who-Likes-Poetry needs (see image above, links & commentary below).

AFTER THE JUMP: links, commentary. Also, there may or may be not a picture of what I might or might not have worn to the poetry festival.

  1. If you are a poet or like to read poems, you must wear a neutral or earth-tone scarf. Waffle Stitch Scarf (in foggy — obviously a color… for poets) from Urban Outfitters, $28
  2. If you are a poet you NEED a canvas tote bag. This is so you can carry all the books you must have with you at all times and all the notebooks you must write in all of the time. You get BONUS POINTS if the bag is from a used bookstore or library sale. Strand Tote Bag, $11
  3. Gems and beads are a poetry-reader must-have. All the better if the necklace and earrings match. Ember Glow Earrings ($25) and Necklace ($40), from Coldwater Creek
  4. Poets are notorious for their drinking. I mean famous poets. I mean, you know, old-white-male-dead poets were famously alcoholic. Anyway, this has nothing to do with tea. Middle-aged women who listen to poetry read aloud definitely drink warm liquid, and that warm liquid is more frequently tea than coffee, and it is often green tea, and it is often some semi-eccentric brand such as Tazo. Actually, maybe all the tea-drinking has something to with the poetry festival being cold and wet… Tazo Green Tea, $10 for a box at Starbucks
  5. Poets & their entourage are usually liberal. Scan any poetry festival parking lot. Sometimes they are so liberal they live on a co-op as part of a mini-socialist society. Obama bumper sticker, $5
  6. What do you do with that Tazo Green Tea when you aren’t at the poetry festival? OBVIOUSLY you put it in your sort-of-funny poetry-joke mug! Actually, this Shakespeare Love Mug is pretty funny. But I was an English major, so that may taint my view of things. Unemployed Philosophers Guild, $13
  7. Notebook! Of course you need a notebook! Reporter-style is all-the-better for poetry festivals. You can write down things like: “Tragedy is just underdeveloped comedy.” and “The times between poetry and misery are well-established, but certainly they’re sometimes interrupted by brief periods of contentment.” (Oh, Billy Collins! Get your own late show!) Moleskine Reporter, Small Ruled Notebook, $10 at amazon.com
  8. Lastly, poets notoriously subscribe to poetry magazines. The titles of these magazines are often comprised of a single, extravagant, barely-ever used word. Or else they are named after a muse. Anyway, this is not always the case. For example, POETRY magazine has a very straightforward title, especially when you consider that the title was probably created by poets themselves. I can think of a few poets who would never name their magazine POETRY (John *cough* Ashbery, EE *cough* Cummings). Anyway, the picture in the collage above is actually from a fabulous little series from Poetry Magazine that combined poems with graphic novelists (POW! Double dork!). (This one is illustrated by Ron Rege Jr. You can read/look at the whole poem here.)

Okay, so my outfit may have looked something like this:

Notice how I no longer match my room. Which proves one big point: poets do not have to be drawn to neutral, earth-tones and they do not have to be middle-aged. (Of course they do have to drink tea and like Shakespeare mugs.)

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