Sometimes a poet steps out of his dream long enough to make a bunch of money and attract millions of fans. Brad Paisley, for example. Country singer? Certainly. Poet? More poet than literary purists might allow.

The Saturday Gazette-Mail front page today has a story about Brad Paisley returning to his hometown of Glen Dale to film a movie. Here’s a guy who loves West Virginia and knows how important place can be to poetry. He knows that however country the song is, it delivers poetry, and poetry depends on details.

A John Hayes story in Friday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sheds some light on Paisley, in advance of his performance today at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pavilion:

Personal experience — intimate glimpses of life’s little moments — are part of what has made Paisley’s songs a staple of mainstream country radio.

Growing up in small town Glen Dale, W.Va., on a musical diet of George Strait, Steve Wariner, Ricky Skaggs and Alabama on WWVA-AM, Paisley says he was left with an indelible impression of the way life’s little moments can weave in and out of country songs in ways that don’t work in other genres.

How many contemporary rock songs are about guys who love their dads? Paisley turned heads on his debut album with a tribute to his father, “He Didn’t Have to Be,” and titled his 2003 hit single “Little Moments.”

“You think about George Strait and the details in songs like ‘The Chair’ or ‘The Cowboy Rides Away,’ ” he said. “Those songs are absolutely little poems — they’re more like paintings, actually, than poems.”

So, with strong opposition to cliches aside, we know that country and rock and blues carry powerful poetry. Again, I think of Gary Snyder saying that Americans love and buy a large amount of poetry, in the form of song.

Link of interest: Brad Paisley’s space

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Speaking of singer/songwriters

Colleen Anderson and Julie Adams, both talented singer/songwriters, are teaching a workshop called “Giving Voice: Words and Music that Change the World” at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. October 8 through 14, 2007.

This is the Tenth Anniversary Celebration of the Fall Writing Festival at Ghost Ranch.

Anderson wins awards with her creative studio Mother Wit Writing and Design in Charleston, W.Va., and Adams is a regular on Mountain Stage, a production of W.Va. Public Broadcasting.

Read more about Ghost Ranch here.

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