[…]neo-neocon » Blog Archive » The poetry you know and the poetry you don’t know[…]…

There is no accident about this. It’s the result of a total lack of discipline in the creation of verse. Our universities don’t value literature or a liberal arts curriculum anymore. Schools don’t bother to even mention that poetry has a structure, let alone suggest budding poets learn anything about it. Instead, poetry is celebrated as something spontaneous and easy.

Great poetry looks great on the page. Today’s flabby verse is shapeless whereas classical verse displays a plasticity akin to sculpture. It has a clearly definable shape

Poetry is not only a great art form. It is one of the earliest art forms and yet with all the writing of poetry, there is little actual study of it.

Great poetry is not only memorable, it has extraordinary power.

“Cowards die many times before their death. The valiant never taste of death, but once.” – Julius Caesar

There is a preview of my film, “The Force of Poetry” at this link.

https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1052756

Please view it and leave a comment.

Thank you.

In general, it is true that not many people read anything – let alone read every day as I do. There are always excuses about time. Always implicit in the comment “I’m just too busy to read” is the insult “and clearly you’re not”. Other excuses are often given for why a person does not choose to read, though time is the favourite. However, I have always been in the sad minority when it comes to reading. Not one of my close childhood or teenage friends (and only one adult friend I can think of offhand) reads regularly – and most of my friends are bright people. They simply did not grow up with the habit of reading.

I work in the education sector and even though most of the people I work with are intelligent and educated I only know of one who is a habitual reader.

I think that being an avid reader is simply a fairly unusual trait, and more importantly, a learned trait – because so few people read, few pass it down to their children. I am very pleased to say both my children love to read.

Unfortunately I believe that readers are in the minority – and always have been. I do my best to promote the benefits and joys of reading to the children I work with and meet, aside from that I don’t think there’s much anyone can do.

I don’t think there has been a general decline in the standards of English, reading and etc. I think it is the sad state of the human race, and always has been. Maybe now we are able to globally communicate, and more people are aware of the problem, we can try to do something about that.

Regards

I’ve given a lot of thought to your topic for some time. I graduated college with an English Lit degree and at the end of it, found myself more versed in Marxism than English Lit. This just about sums up what I think is the reason for poetry’s demise.

Ever since the English Romantics, poetry has been sliding downhill, since it is my contention that Romanticism is the approximate moment in literature where reason turned on itself and mankind (in the literary world, anyway) began to twist their eyeballs to look back onto their glorious self-image. Who can read Shelley’s Defense of Poetry and not notice the rank narcissism in his declaration that poets are the Legislators of the world?

Furthermore, I think poetry is no longer memorable because of two main reasons. The first is that the world of art, in all its forms, became too enamored with itself and became entirely disconnected to the rest of society. Who can genuinely listen to Art music, and not cringe from the discord? Who can sit there and listen to the pretensions of a “poet” standing at a microphone or behind a rostrum blathering and belittling all our values? Is it any wonder that the general public has turned their backs on academia and “poets”?

The second reason is that people are no longer readers. Since the tail end of the Baby Boom generation, Americans have changed from being a phoentic people (“I can hear the truth of what you’re saying.”) to visual people (“Seeing is believing.”). The number of people who are educated has shrunk dramatically since the 1950’s. And just because a person attends college does not mean they’re educated because colleges tend toward indoctrination and job specialization than providing you with a well-rounded education. In like fashion, I do not consider the basic ability to read as being literate. It is so much more than that. Comprehension, critical thinking, reasoning are all part of it.

The vast majority of people no longer are interested in poetry because it has become virtually archaic to modern sensibilities and because most people no longer read. For the past, four years after my graduation, I have rarely come across another reader. Besides, what is reading but a form of entertainment? And why should people choose to read when the TV can titillate people much easier?

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,grasshopper;

Poetry has been seized by elitists — of which the majority happen to be academics. However, my problem is not with academia per se because academia doesn’t have to be elitist. Elitism is not the whole story of poetry’s demise.

50 years is a short timeframe, even in the world of “modern poetry” and “commonly known” may be more age, era, and culturally dependent than you or I might care to admit.

As usual, some of your readers have left insightful and interesting comments. I agree with Mr. Moulder, that poetry has been seized by academic elitists.

Poetry can’t just be read. It has to be heard.

I’ve read that today in Italy you will find cab drivers, bakers & janitors that follow & know all about opera. It used to be like that with poetry in America. Ordinary people, people in all walks of life, not just intellectuals, used to read & care about poetry.

What happened? For one thing, craft was tossed aside in all the arts. Now you need at least a graduate degree related to the discipline to be able to appreciate contemporary art. When there’s a paucity of craft you need the priest/critic to interpret the work because an ordinary person is not ‘qualified.’ Whether a work of art is good or not has virtually become an article of faith. Art has become kind of like a religion, complete with received word, bibles, saints & Christ-figures.

The cult of personality has been insinuating itself into the arts since the Renaissance but it really gained a lot of ground during the last century. When the emphasis is on the artist instead of the art can decadence be far behind?

There’s another profound problem for contemporary art — people don’t buy it. The middle class doesn’t waste their money anymore. I think I read somewhere that Jackson Pollock said, “If I’m so f*****g famous why aren’t I rich?” The guy made barely enough money to rent a space & buy materials.

That’s why art subsidies are so sought after — otherwise they would have to work for a living — like for instance, teach — as so many poets do. And that’s why contemporary poetry is mainly the province of academia. No one makes a living with poetry so you have to have a day job. The overwhelming majority, I’d say 90%, of prizes & awards go to college professors. Pick up any volume of poetry & read the bio. The book is almost sure to have been written by a college professor. And of course, poetry being mainly a thing engaged in by academics, politics, specifically lefty politics, was injected into poesy. That probably turns off some would-be poetry lovers who may detest being preached at on social issues by some stupidly righteous poet.

Charlie Colorado, I’ve read much of Ginsberg. He’s obligatory if you are interested in contemporary poetry but my opinion is he wrote 2 or 3 mediocre poems that wont stand the test of time & the rest is utterly forgettable. Get what you can from him & move on to better stuff. There is good poetry being published.

Yes indeed Alex, people don’t read poetry anymore. The question is why. Elitism killed poetry. The father of modern poetry was Walt Whitman. He would be puzzled & saddened by the present state of poetry & the arts. He wrote for the uneducated as much as he wrote for the educated. He was the opposite of an elitist. All the rest, from W. C. Williams on, follow his footsteps. If I had to choose one book of poetry to read it would be “Leaves of Grass.”

Quoting from memory:

I dreamed that I had found us both again
With spring so many strangers’ lives away
And we, so free
Out walking by the sea
With someone else’s paper words to say

(from Gravity’s Rainbow)

The eyes of a New York woman
Are the twilight side of the moon
Nobody knows what’s going on there
Where it’s always late afternoon

(From “V”, IIRC)