Robert Bly

APRIL IS NATIONAL Poetry Month. This means poets on postage stamps, poem-a-day e-mails and poets-in-the-schools are working overtime. But if talking about poetry makes you shudder, you're not alone. For many people, the thought of poetry brings back memories of seventh grade. If we were lucky, we had an English teacher who loved poetry so much that when he or she read poems aloud we could viscerally experience the power of words meeting air. But there were other teachers who made us memorize Old English or deconstruct poems about marriage and mortality, topics not exactly top-of-mind for 12-year-olds.

APRIL IS NATIONAL Poetry Month. This means poets on postage stamps, poem-a-day e-mails and poets-in-the-schools are working overtime. But if talking about poetry makes you shudder, you're not alone. For many people, the thought of poetry brings back memories of seventh grade. If we were lucky, we had an English teacher who loved poetry so much that when he or she read poems aloud we could viscerally experience the power of words meeting air. But there were other teachers who made us memorize Old English or deconstruct poems about marriage and mortality, topics not exactly top-of-mind for 12-year-olds.

The name of Robert Bly often evokes images of paint-covered men drumming -- and bonding -- in the woods. Though an award-winning poet, he was hardly known outside academic circles before he wrote a best-selling book a few years ago that galvanized the so-called men's movement.Most of the reading public knows Bly for "Iron John." But he has written or translated more than a dozen books of and about poetry and calls the genre his first love.And it is poetry he will read and discuss today at Howard Community College in Columbia.

ROBERT BLY, the poet and one of the great owls of American society, saw this coming. In his 1996 book, "The Sibling Society," he observed a cultural transformation in which adults regress toward adolescence, and adolescents, seeing this, refuse to become adults. Respect for elders disappears. Our social and political leaders strive not to be good, or great, but to be famous.And, even more to the point, Bly saw a society in which "every detail of a president's life is used to discredit him."

The name of Robert Bly often evokes images of paint-covered men drumming -- and bonding -- in the woods. Though an award-winning poet, he was hardly known outside academic circles before he wrote a best-selling book a few years ago that galvanized the so-called men's movement.Most of the reading public knows Bly for "Iron John." But he has written or translated more than a dozen books of and about poetry and calls the genre his first love.And it is poetry he will read and discuss today at Howard Community College in Columbia.

NEW YORK -- There is not a deerskin-covered drum in sight. Nor any papier-mache animal masks to inspire visitors with their fierce primitive maleness.A half-dozen years after Robert Bly and his followers stomped into the light of the national campfire, urging "sensitive," "soft" males to get in touch with their inner wild man, it would seem the most visible legacy of the "men's movement" is the macho-lite persona of the television star Tim Allen on "Home Improvement."Bly, whose snow-white hair and best-selling book "Iron John" once made him an avuncular father figure to millions, was ensconced in a New York University residential high-rise, in boxy white rooms furnished like a graduate-student apartment.

LIKE RANDY MILLIGAN, WHO GOES BY MOOSE IN THE ORIOLES locker room, and James Brown, the Godfather of Soul on stage, Robert Keller has a nickname all his own. Around the 15th floor of the Legg Mason building, he is referred to simply, and sometimes quite seriously, as Mr. Vision.He admits to this and lets out a hearty laugh, seemingly pleased with his image as a leader charting the business course of a city.It's a title some say Mr. Keller has earned. As president of the Greater Baltimore Committee, an organization representing 1,000 of the area's largest companies, he was responsible for recently unveiling an ambitious blueprint to make Baltimore the nation's leader in "life sciences."

Longmont, Colo.--Jeffrey Duvall believes so much in what Robert Bly says that he has become a facilitator of men's gatherings. He organizes trips in the wilderness where men can, over a few days and through much effort, break down barriers inside themselves and between other men. He meets weekly with a men's kiva, or group, in which the most intense kind of anguish is shared. He participates in the spear-making, mask-making and men's dances that so many outsiders find amusing or bizarre. And he has never felt better.

"What Do Men Really Want?" Newsweek asked earlier this summer in its cover story on the burgeoning men's movement.Whether they want it or not, men are in store for more books telling them how to be men. One look at the non-fiction best-seller list reveals why: Robert Bly's "Iron John: A Book About Men" and Sam Keen's "Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man" are surprising fixtures. With their success, at least three more books about male bonding are due from publishers this fall.From men's weekends in the woods to TV sitcoms to books, the topic of men's finding the "inner warrior" or the "wild man" within is permeating the culture, even if it sometimes inspires skepticism.

ROBERT BLY, the poet and one of the great owls of American society, saw this coming. In his 1996 book, "The Sibling Society," he observed a cultural transformation in which adults regress toward adolescence, and adolescents, seeing this, refuse to become adults. Respect for elders disappears. Our social and political leaders strive not to be good, or great, but to be famous.And, even more to the point, Bly saw a society in which "every detail of a president's life is used to discredit him."

The name of Robert Bly often evokes images of paint-covered men drumming -- and bonding -- in the woods. Though an award-winning poet, he was hardly known outside academic circles before he wrote a best-selling book a few years ago that galvanized the so-called men's movement.Most of the reading public knows Bly for "Iron John." But he has written or translated more than a dozen books of and about poetry and calls the genre his first love.And it is poetry he will read and discuss today at Howard Community College in Columbia.

The name of Robert Bly often evokes images of paint-covered men drumming -- and bonding -- in the woods. Though an award-winning poet, he was hardly known outside academic circles before he wrote a best-selling book a few years ago that galvanized the so-called men's movement.Most of the reading public knows Bly for "Iron John." But he has written or translated more than a dozen books of and about poetry and calls the genre his first love.And it is poetry he will read and discuss today at Howard Community College in Columbia.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sitting by my window in the afternoons I often hear the distinctive sounds of martial arts coming from the karate dojo down the street. Aiee! shouts the blond instructor as he punches the air. Aiee! shout his students, punching the air along with him. It occurs to me they are announcing my arrival.I had resigned myself to the idea that the public and private cultures in America would never meet. Born in Vietnam, I came here when I was 12 and spent my teen-age years and much of my twenties lurking between Little Saigon and the shopping mall.

NEW YORK -- There is not a deerskin-covered drum in sight. Nor any papier-mache animal masks to inspire visitors with their fierce primitive maleness.A half-dozen years after Robert Bly and his followers stomped into the light of the national campfire, urging "sensitive," "soft" males to get in touch with their inner wild man, it would seem the most visible legacy of the "men's movement" is the macho-lite persona of the television star Tim Allen on "Home Improvement."Bly, whose snow-white hair and best-selling book "Iron John" once made him an avuncular father figure to millions, was ensconced in a New York University residential high-rise, in boxy white rooms furnished like a graduate-student apartment.

Family therapist Olga Silverstein and journalist Beth Rashbaum declare that it takes courage to raise good men because raising sons to be independent and good providers, as well as emotionally open, is so very hard.It has largely been, and still is, the job of mother; indeed, since an estimated 25 percent of the children in the United States -- an unprecedented amount -- have little or no contact with their fathers, it appears that rearing sons (and daughters) is solely the mother's job even more than before.

At times what marks an important book is the author's capacity to upend our interpretation of things we thought we already understood.In January of 1990, on public television, Bill Moyers interviewed an almost unknown American poet named Robert Bly about Mr. Bly's interest in the identity crisis of the American man. That broadcast brought in a deluge of requests to PBS from viewers asking for transcripts of the interview. Later that year, Mr. Bly published his thoughtful book about men, ''Iron John,'' and it quickly became a best-seller.

Longmont, Colo.-- They are more than 300, well coiffed, well dressed and, judging by their peaceful countenances, spiritually well fed. Professional men almost all, quite civil and civilized, gathered amiably in this hotel conference room in this Denver suburb on a snowy Saturday morning. For $85 in this seven-hour "day for men," they are hearing from the tall, white-haired man on the stage why they are so miserable.He is Robert Bly, and in ways that are alternately serious, flip, gently sarcastic, angry and reflective, he tells them:*"Because of the Industrial Revolution, there's a situation of having been abandoned by the father.

At times what marks an important book is the author's capacity to upend our interpretation of things we thought we already understood.In January of 1990, on public television, Bill Moyers interviewed an almost unknown American poet named Robert Bly about Mr. Bly's interest in the identity crisis of the American man. That broadcast brought in a deluge of requests to PBS from viewers asking for transcripts of the interview. Later that year, Mr. Bly published his thoughtful book about men, ''Iron John,'' and it quickly became a best-seller.

"What Do Men Really Want?" Newsweek asked earlier this summer in its cover story on the burgeoning men's movement.Whether they want it or not, men are in store for more books telling them how to be men. One look at the non-fiction best-seller list reveals why: Robert Bly's "Iron John: A Book About Men" and Sam Keen's "Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man" are surprising fixtures. With their success, at least three more books about male bonding are due from publishers this fall.From men's weekends in the woods to TV sitcoms to books, the topic of men's finding the "inner warrior" or the "wild man" within is permeating the culture, even if it sometimes inspires skepticism.

LIKE RANDY MILLIGAN, WHO GOES BY MOOSE IN THE ORIOLES locker room, and James Brown, the Godfather of Soul on stage, Robert Keller has a nickname all his own. Around the 15th floor of the Legg Mason building, he is referred to simply, and sometimes quite seriously, as Mr. Vision.He admits to this and lets out a hearty laugh, seemingly pleased with his image as a leader charting the business course of a city.It's a title some say Mr. Keller has earned. As president of the Greater Baltimore Committee, an organization representing 1,000 of the area's largest companies, he was responsible for recently unveiling an ambitious blueprint to make Baltimore the nation's leader in "life sciences."