On Monday, September 4, the Wave Books Poetry Bus tour begins what will be in the end an amazing feat: touring 48 cities in just as many days. Poets across the land of milk and honey will be entering and exiting the bus, living in it, sleeping in it, struggling with words in it, eating in it—as well as fighting with other poets, laughing with other poets, crying with other poets, until, finally, on October 27, the bus comes full circle to its destination: the Space Needle.

The Poetry Bus Launch is in two parts: one is on the bus itself, between noon and 5:30 pm. Nico Vassilakis, Maged Zaher, and Daniel Comiskey are some of the poets who are part of the on-the-bus reading. The other half of the Poetry Bus Launch takes place in the Alki Room between 5:00 and 6:15 p.m. Some of the featured poets for this section are Eileen Myles, Arthur Sze, and Erin Belieu. Poet and editor of Wave Books, Joshua Beckman, is the host of all this.

Who’s That Girl Tour 1987 was Madonna’s first major tour and, unlike the Poetry Bus tour, it went all over the world. In fact, one of the famous episodes in that tour was Madonna’s confrontation with the Vatican, which ordered its followers to boycott her Rome performance. But nothing could stop the Italians from seeing the queen of the 80s. The Who’s That Girl Tour 1987 stabilized Madonna’s position as a global superstar. After that point, there was no turning back.

In conclusion: The poets in the Poetry Bus tour are doing an amazing thing. It is amazing to go all over America, reading poems to fans of poetry. But if poets really want to impress us, they must dream as big as Madonna; desire to do nothing less than to read their work in stadiums filled with thousands of screaming teenagers. That, ladies and gentlemen, is absolute power.