Hello, my name’s Jennifer Jabaily, and I’m a recent addition to Linebreak–  this is my first post on Unstressed.

Some musicians want so badly to give their poems to the world.  We’ve seen volumes released by Jewel, Jeff Tweedy, Jill Scott, and Billy Corgan, among others.  I’m not going to take any real shots at them.  It’s unsporting.  It’s like mocking a celebutante’s fashion line.

Some are poets by accident or reputation: Christopher Ricks has defended Bob Dylan’s lyrics as poetry, and Harper Perennial advertised “The Lyrics of Tom Waits, 1973-1982″ in the latest issue of “The Writer’s Chronicle.”  Maybe there’s something in it.  Maybe they’re our time’s answer to Arnaut Daniel or Bertand de Born.  Maybe not.

Others have released volumes of poetry with more success– or at least have been shielded by unimpeachable street cred: Leonard Cohen, David Berman, and Patti Smith (as highlighted in a 2006 Slate post by Meghan O’Rourke) are among the comparatively lucky.

Hoping to find some poets who’ve crossed into the seedy world of rockstardom, I came across a 2008 article from The Guardian in which British poet Simon Armitage proves this is not a one-way street.   You can hear some selections from his band, The Scaremongers, at last.fm.  I don’t know what to say, exactly.  There’s a certain forgiveness in a catchy melody.