Locally based website a vending machine for poetry, art
November 8, 2011
While the Region Rambler staff and I drove together to a local eatery last year for a meeting, I noticed a car with a handmade bumper sticker sporting a website address: Rereadapoem.com. It was direct and piqued my interest. Reread a poem?
The site is run and maintained by local poet Terry Horn. Terry's idea is straightforward: Instead of getting a candy bar or soda from a vending machine, you get a painting or a poem.
He has a virtual vending machine on his website along with PDFs of poems, song files and photographic images. Terry created the site because he thought it would be cool if, when you pressed a button, you received a miniature piece of fine art for a small fee.
Everything on the website from the poems to music comes from Terry. He questions what constitutes a modern poet. He isn't interested in traditional AB rhyme schemes and has his own sense of timing.
“Poetry should be whatever our life is about,” he said.
Before living in The Region, Terry spent time in New Jersey and New York City. He’s always been into poetry, and he also played music, starting out in the folk music vein. In the 1980s while he was in New York, he experimented with drum machines, and his activities eventually evolved into a punk band that played at CBGB's, a New York hard core and punk rock club. But he concluded there were limitations to music. He didn't want to be trapped by rhymes and refused to do covers. Eventually, he eliminated the musical aspect of his songs. They became just words.
Terry doesn’t have any set notions about about whom his demographic is supposed to be. He believes poetry should be accessible—should open—to everyone.
“A person shouldn't have to get a degree to read or appreciate a poem,” he said.
Terry's work incorporates abstractions. He tries to steer clear of politics, but he veers in that direction occasionally.
A house fire dealt a blow to his creative endeavors, destroying all of his works at the time and leaving him with a fear that he wouldn’t be able to come up with more material. But in late 2010, he finished a book titled “A Mother's Tale,” which he based on staying at a hotel in New Jersey. He published the book himself, and it’s now on sale through Amazon.com.
So far, Terry is happy with the website and hopes it will nurture people’s appreciation for poetry.
“I hope that people read something from the site, get something from it and want to reread it,” he said.
To check out his work, visit www.rereadapoem.com.
