Ruth Meberg is not a poet. She does not fit the standard prototype of what a poet should be. She has never taken a single class dedicated to the process and practice of writing poetry. She does not list great poets of the past, such as Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman as influences on her or her art. She has never sat at the attention of a crowd inside a small coffee bar, reading her poetry at an open-mike night.
      On the other hand, Ruth Meberg is a poet. She is part of a different group of poets, a group that many people might not immediately associate with poetry. This group is filled with industrious artists who regularly put hours of effort behind crafting their brand of poetry, polishing their craft with the same dedication as a traditional poet would. This group occupies Fargo-Moorhead’s local music scene, and Ruth Meberg is this type of poet.
      So, can Meberg, the lead singer for the local band, Kitsch Factor, be considered a poet of the Fargo-Moorhead community? Can we compare the singer-songwriters in local bands to our stereotypical images of what poets should be like? Minnesota State University-Moorhead English instructor Elizabeth Severn sees many musicians as worthy of praise for their poetry. “Some of our most skilled songwriters are poets, if you think of…Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Alison Krause, Greg Brown…[locally] I think Brenda Weiler is a fine poet."
     Meberg is not the classically-trained poet that one might imagine a student of poetry to be. Instead, she’s a self-taught poet, relying more on her own instincts and personal trials to determine where her poetry will go. Meberg describes her writing process: “Either I’ll start out with lyrics or an idea of lyrics…and it’ll be cut-and-pasted in different ways to fit a hook that I have. There are times where I’ve just sat and [written ideas] out, and specific ideas that I want to go into the song. But, I think it works better if you just write, and you don’t think about it. Then, you can cut things out, and revise it and put in better words, and better describe what you’re trying to bring across.”
     Although Meberg is currently “writing a song that’s based specifically on one of Margaret Atwood’s [poetry] books,” she does not cite any other traditional poets as inspirations to her lyrical craft. “I’ve never been that big of a poetry fan,” she claims.
     In terms of musical inspirations, Meberg has a long list that reads almost as a progression of her own songwriting evolution. “When I first start listening to stuff, I was way into Jewel and Sheryl Crow, so I wrote pretty normal, no big words or anything,” she describes. “And then I started listening more to Sleater-Kinney, and that kind of made me more angry, writing angry songs that are more descriptive, definitely. Then, lately, I’ve listened to faster stuff, like Le Tigre, and I want to write songs that are more super-peppy and super-feminist. The more stuff I listen to, the more well-rounded I write.”
     Severn agrees with Meberg’s approach to choosing inspiration from among the musical herd, as she says: “Would Walt Whitman ever have gotten airplay on MTV? How do the great songwriters, poets, lyricists reach their audience when you’re inundated with crap? The people you see on commercial television are not the great voices. I think that students and young people have to seek it out in local venues. They have to find the Walt Whitmans, because the marketers aren’t going to bring the great voices across television.”
     The chief difference between singer-songwriters like Meberg and a traditional poet might be the arenas through which these artists choose to share their work with the public. Wherein the standard image of a public performance of poetry would include an individual standing in front of a microphone, clutching a notebook and reading poem after poem to a silent crowd in a small coffee house, the venue is slightly different for the singer-songwriter.
     Rock shows are booked and put together by those involved in the scene because of their shared love for music and its craft. “Most of the shows we’ve played come from people in the scene here," said Meberg. "If you get along with people, they ask you to play shows if you’re a decent band.”
     According to Severn, this shares a lot in common with the poetry scene of Fargo-Moorhead in terms of independent promotion. “It takes organizing,” Severn says. “I know that Zandbroz often has poets read work…Barnes & Noble, I suppose, they bring poets.” However, poetry enthusiasts may have an easier time of finding venues for their performances than those in the music scene. “I think that poets could do it individually,” according to Severn, “but here, with the MFA [Master of Fine Arts] program…I think that students benefit from having a way for students to share their poetry.”
     Though she is not the stereotypical image of what a poet should be, Meberg exemplifies a different kind of poetry. She represents a scene of young artists who give a majority of their time and effort into writing their own kind of poetry and setting it to music.
     This is not far from where traditional poetry comes from, as Severn sums up the connection between songwriting and the writing of poetry. “I think that if students learn the discipline, the pleasure, of reading poetry aloud, they can hear the music of it,” Severn says. “So, that adds to the pleasure of reading poetry, to read it out loud, in a quiet room or to someone else. That, also, would enhance the appreciation of a songwriter doing his or her [poetry], set to melody.” Though most people might not associate the young people behind the microphone, playing loud music in their basement or garage with poetry, they are, like Meberg, among Fargo-Moorhead’s most talented poets.