Officer’s poetry snaps stereotype

By Lee Mallory, Las Vegas

Sunday, April 13, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

Joe Schoenmann’s story about Lt. Harry Fagel, the Metro Police poet, shatters the stereotype that poetry is written only by effete intellectuals who come out only after dark.

Indeed, I have edited war poetry from a Vietnam-era lieutenant colonel and hosted an Army reservist reading Iraq War poems.

Question: Was it the quirky juxtaposition of policeman and poet that caught Joe Downtown’s eye or the vital role that poetry may play in our lives? Also, you could have dumped a couple of Joe’s print paragraphs, and actually run a poem. After all, a poem is worth 1,000 words — wherein the poem becomes the man (in this case Fagel) and the man becomes the poem.

Finally, I enjoyed the story. So tell Fagel to keep his metaphors unholstered.

But, where possible, to use a simile, not a stick.