Save Poetry From The Professors

Andrew Sullivan points to an interesting blog post about the sorry state of modern poetry. I'm requoting what Sully liked:

The best thing that could happen to poetry is to drive it out of the universities with burning pitch forks. Starve the lavish grants. Strangle them all in a barrel of water.

Couldn't agree more. I studied a fair amount of poetry in college, and still own at least a couple of books of poetry. I can quote some Keats, and thoroughly enjoyed Bright Star. I've written a fair amount myself, and once spent three years working on one poem. But I can't stand most current American poetry. Here's how most poetry sounds to me:

I am a poet (pause, deep breath, sigh)
and you (pause) are who I am thinking of (pause, another sigh)
because (pause)
we are both (pause)
depressed.

Most poetry seems to be written by people who are scared of their own shadows, and are creating a space for themselves to be still, and quiet, and mostly alone. It's very inward-directed, and seems to be written by people who are anxious about even going outside. That's probably too harsh, and I'm sure there are thousands of great counterexamples. But that's what a lot of it sounds like to me. The writer of this blog post believes that the source of the problem is that many poets are comfortably ensconced in universities, and that poetry journals end up publishing poetry written by and for these university-bound folks.

Again, couldn't agree more. Except that I don't think this is anywhere nearly radical enough in its definition of poetry. It limits "poetry" to what is being published in books and journals. I think that's absurd. The English-speaking world has a great tradition of poetry called rock and roll. Consider this line:

"The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive."

Millions of people have heard that line hundreds of times each. It's from Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run." It could easily be one of the most overplayed songs in history. But try to think about that image without the context of FM radio. There's a reason it's overplayed - it's a great line for a rock song.

So I don't think the problem with American poetry is that Americans aren't interested in poetry. I think the problem is that a few people who are decent writers have managed to convince the rest of us that it's worthwhile to subsidize them so they can talk to each other about how special they are. And some of those people have convinved themselves that they are the ones who determine what is and is not considered "art."

What this writer fails to realize is that the disconnect and the concern is mostly one-sided. He's worried that Americans don't connect with contemporary poets. But the concern is not reciprocated. Most Americans don't read poetry because it doesn't speak to them - he's right there. But most of them also don't care that contemporary poetry doesn't speak to them. I'm perfectly capable of reading and understanding contemporary American poetry. I've even bought "Best American Poetry" books before. But I don't read contemporary American poetry not only because it doesn't speak to me, but because I don't care about it. Two sides of the same coin, I suppose.

But I'm falling into the same trap - defining "poetry" as what is published by people who call themselves poets, and is published in poetry journals. It's not that I don't care about contemporary poetry. It's that I don't care about a particular brand of poery.

Marianne Moore said it best:

Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.

Sarah Palin, poet?

Julian Gough, a writer at the British magazine Prospect, has a somewhat unusual proposal: Barack Obama should appoint Sarah Palin poet laureate.

Here's an example of her poetry:

And the relevance to me
With that issue,
As we spoke
About Africa and some
Of the countries
There that were
Kind of the people succumbing
To the dictators
And the corruption
Of some collapsed governments
On the Continent,
The relevance
Was Alaska’s.

(formatting by Andrew Sullivan)

And perhaps her most famous quote turns out to be a haiku!

What’s the difference
Between a hockey mom and
A pit bull? Lipstick

Hough's justification for considering Palin a poet:

A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges. A great poet does not self-censor; Sarah Palin seems authentically innocent of what she is saying. She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake.

What's funny about this is not just what it says about Sarah Palin, but what it says about contemporary poetry. Read that first bit, imagining a breathy, halting, melodramatic voice, and it almost works. The line breaks establish the pacing that seems to define poetry today.

Perhaps Yeats was anticipating Sarah Palin when he wrote that famous description of the outcome of Easter 1916:

All changed, changed utterly.
A terrible beauty is born.

Rereading it, with my appreciation for irony quite sharp these days, I found these lines immediately after those above:

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.

Sarah Palin as Maud Gonne? She is certainly a muse to many.

One day early, here is something I am thankful for: that I have the freedom to have fun with this idea.

Does poetry matter

The Atlantic recently opened up its archives, so readers can find anything that has been published (there is a fee, but I would consider paying if I found the right article). That's a rich trove, since it has been in existence since the mid-19th century. Andrew Sullivan dug up this gem by Dana Gioia. It's a superb treatise on the problem of why poetry seems to have left the public consciousness. It's the fault of the academy, according to Goia, and I wholeheartedly agree. There are now so many "poets in residence," that there is a glut of material. The problem is not just that glut, but the effect that it has on the poets themselves - they write for each other, they write ABOUT each other, and poetry becomes an ever-more self-contained subculture. I love this description of poetry:

Poetry is the art of using words charged with their utmost meaning.

What I find both tragic and funny about this essay is that I read quite a few paragraphs into it before I realized it was not contemporary. It was published in 1991, but still resonates perfectly. He proposes a few remedies, which I imagine had no impact whatsoever. This is because Goia misunderstands the purpose of the academy these days. The purpose of universities and colleges is allegedly to advance the cause of knowledge, and that is, for the most part, true of the people who work within them. But there is another purpose, and that is to give jobs to people who are brilliant, or at least smart, but otherwise wouldn't have solid employment options. There is, of course, a cost to paying these people to perform largely meaningless services, but it's cheaper than seeing them on the streets. If they are not necessarily productive, at least they do no harm. Our culture suffers for it in the form of too much bad poetry. Personally, I see no alternative.

This post would not be complete without Marianne Moore's famous poem, "Poetry:"

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.