Reginald Dwayne Betts discusses his new collection of poems, 'Doggerel'

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with author Reginald Dwayne Betts about his new collection of poems, "Doggerel," a meditation on family, friendship and falling in love.

MARTIN: So remind us again of what the classic definition of doggerel is. And then, of course, you know I'm going to ask you - what's yours?

BETTS: Yeah, so doggerel classically just means mediocre poetry.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

BETTS: And I chose the name of "Doggerel" because doggerel isn't really just mediocre poetry. Poetry is meant to serve a purpose. And sometimes, we don't let poetry serve its purpose because we think that it has to be on some certain kind of level, and we define our audience first. I wanted to write poems that say, this is for everybody. So if you're looking for some laughter, there's something here for you. If you're looking for love, there's something here for you.

But I also wanted to cleverly sneak the word dog into the title because so many of these poems came out of my experience getting a dog during the pandemic and walking a dog and really seeing the world as a man who just, you know, had a new friend that was showing me things and revealing things to me that I just didn't pay attention to, including joy.

You can listen to the full interview here.