Forum Thread: Is Poetry Dead? (Discussion)

From time to time, I will move up threads that seem to be relevant in the moment. New users jump onto Poets.net every day, and, perhaps, have missed some of the earlier threads.

This thread was originally posted on March 31, at 9:50 PM, when Poets.net was just a week old.

Dana Gioia, in the May 1991 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, wrote the still-controversial essay "Can Poetry Matter?"

Some relevant excerpts from Gioia's essay:

____________________________

American poetry now belongs to a subculture. No longer part of the mainstream of artistic and intellectual life, it has become the specialized occupation of a relatively small and isolated group. Little of the frenetic activity it generates ever reaches outside that closed group. As a class poets are not without cultural status. Like priests in a town of agnostics, they still command a certain residual prestige. But as individual artists they are almost invisible.

...

Why, for example, does poetry mix so seldom with music, dance, or theater? At most readings the program consists of verse only—and usually only verse by that night's author. Forty years ago, when Dylan Thomas read, he spent half the program reciting other poets' work. Hardly a self-effacing man, he was nevertheless humble before his art. Today most readings are celebrations less of poetry than of the author's ego. No wonder the audience for such events usually consists entirely of poets, would-be poets, and friends of the author.

...

A clubby feeling also typifies most recent anthologies of contemporary poetry. Although these collections represent themselves as trustworthy guides to the best new poetry, they are not compiled for readers outside the academy.

...

Once poets began moving into universities, they abandoned the working-class heterogeneity of Greenwich Village and North Beach for the professional homogeneity of academia.

...

In 1940, with the notable exception of Robert Frost, few poets were working in colleges unless, like Mark Van Doren and Yvor Winters, they taught traditional academic subjects. The only creative-writing program was an experiment begun a few years earlier at the University of Iowa.

...

Reviewers fifty years ago were by today's standards extraordinarily tough. They said exactly what they thought, even about their most influential contemporaries. Listen, for example, to Randall Jarrell's description of a book by the famous anthologist Oscar Williams: it "gave the impression of having been written on a typewriter by a typewriter."...[Reviewers'] praise mattered, because readers knew it did not come lightly.

...

...no art faces more towering obstacles than poetry. Given the decline of literacy, the proliferation of other media, the crisis in humanities education, the collapse of critical standards, and the sheer weight of past failures, how can poets possibly succeed in being heard?

...

[Closing paragraph:]

It is time to experiment, time to leave the well-ordered but stuffy classroom, time to restore a vulgar vitality to poetry and unleash the energy now trapped in the subculture. There is nothing to lose. Society has already told us that poetry is dead. Let's build a funeral pyre out of the desiccated conventions piled around us and watch the ancient, spangle-feathered, unkillable phoenix rise from the ashes.

____________________________

I have posted some highly relevant passages from Gioia's article, but this essay is well worth reading in its entirety.

Gioia also offers "six modest proposals" for how "poetry could again become a part of American public culture," good advice for 2011, but you can read that for yourself (link below).

From Can Poetry Matter?

Forum Thread: "My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went" (Anonymous Folk Poetry)

[Note: this thread was originally posted in April 2008, but I thought it was worth a bump up to 2011.]

I'm going to crawl out on a limb here and make a case for why most modern academic poetry will not endure beyond this generation.

This morning, a traditional folk poem was published in our morning paper (York Daily Record, 10 April 2008, 6A) as part of "Save Those Clippings," by Richard Bowers, a column on aging and how older people seem to collect clippings and other stuff throughout their lives; the author even mentioned Emily Dickinson's penchant for collecting things: "After her death they found volumes of scraps with thoughts (her own and others) that were like seeds from which grew her marvelous poems."

Bowers suggested that his readership pour themselves a cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and read the following traditional/folk poem on aging:

How do I know my youth is all spent?

Well, my Get-up-go has Got-up-and-went.

But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin,

When I think of where my "Get Up" has been.

Old age is golden, I think I've heard it said.

But sometimes I wonder as I crawl into bed,

With my ears in a drawer, my teeth in a cup,

And my eyes on the table until I wake up,

'Ere' sleep dims my vision, I say to myself,

"Is there anything else I should lay on the shelf?"

And I'm happy to say, as I close my door--

"My friends are the same, perhaps even more."

[But nations are warring and business is vexed

So I'll stick around to see what happens next.]

When I was young, my slippers were red,

I could kick up my heels right over my head.

When I grew older, my slippers were blue,

But still I could dance the whole [night] day through.

But I am old, my slippers are black,

I walk [huff] to the store and [I] puff my way back.

[But never you laugh, I don't mind at all

I'd rather be huffing than not puff at all]

The reason I know my youth is all spent,

"My Get Up and Go has Got Up and Went."

But I really don't mind when I think with a grin

Of all the grand places my "Get Up" has been.

Since I have retired from life's competition,

I accommodate myself with complete submission.

So, I get up each morning and dust off my wits,

Open the paper and read the obits,

If my name is missing, I know I'm not dead,

And I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

[Bracketed words were added by Pete Seeger for a song of the same title.]

This poem, published in a market of about 350,000 people, probably received more views on one day than any published modern chapbook in its entire life cycle.

Now why is that?

"My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went" is certainly not "great" poetry; it doesn't play with language, doesn't stun with great metaphors and imagery, doesn't pretend to be the unknown poet's grand opus.

It's just a poem that focuses on the human condition and in a way that the Uncle Lyles of middle America can understand and enjoy. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" does the same thing, but in a way that does not reach everyone.

Now I love Prufrock, but I must admit it has taken me several readings to get there, and I still don't understand everything in that poem. But I'm an academic, and I'm expected to engage in a poetic struggle with Prufrock and his problems. But the average poetry aficionado can just get up and leave. And does. And will continue to do so. Now T.S. Eliot's work will endure, simply because the academy says it will by continuing to publish his poems in anthologies and imposing it on college freshmen. Perhaps Eliot's work endures because he was the first to wrestle with language in that long meandering manner, with vivid metaphors and similes, so he gets a pass for getting there first, just as e.e. cummings has been forgiven for all the imitative lower case "i" poems that have dogged his work.

But here's the deal: once my students move on from Prufrock, most of them will forget him or only remember him as that strange old guy with the thinning hair, talking of bugs struggling on pins, yellow fog rubbing its back, crabs, peaches, women coming and going and speaking of Michelangelo.

Now back to "My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went." I remember this poem from my childhood. Being raised by grandparents, I was privy to aging issues from a very young age. For amusement, my grandmother often dragged me to funerals of distant acquaintances and even strangers just because they were "from the parish." My grandmother loved this poem and knew it practically by heart. Of course, I'd roll my eyes and wished I could hang with younger people, but guess what? In an odd way, this poem has stuck with me. When I read it in this morning's paper, it struck a chord and brought back a past that no longer exists.

I can read a New Yorker poem by a famous poet, and five minutes later, it's gone. No footprint at all. And it doesn't even matter if the poem is a linguistic masterpiece or just an exercise by a tired well-known poet. Something always seems to be missing.

So, today, on the way to a conference, I tried to figured out why most people feel so removed and even alienated from modern poetry, which is often well crafted and even deeply personal.

I decided that "My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went" would be a good poem to deconstruct, to figure out why this simple poem has endured among the masses, even touching folk singer Pete Seeger enough to write a melody for it. I came up with these reasons:

1. The poem rhymes. Readers love to read and listen to rhyme. Back in the day when most people couldn't read, rhymed poems were easy to memorize and pass down to the next generation. Also, there is something about poetic patterns that is appealing and comforting.

2. The theme is universal, easily accessible to all readers. Even as a kid, when I was rolling my eyes, I understood, at least on one level, what aging meant to my grandparents, and this poem "explained" it in a way that I could understand. Modern poetry tends to be so overly personal, almost to the point of being obtuse to most readers except for the poet's inner circle. This navel-gazing trend became popular with Sylvia Plath's works ("Daddy," "Edge," and "Ariel"); her poetry (which I love, by the way) practically requires an accompanying compendium of her life. But "My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went" requires no bio, cultural, or historical background.

3. The poem offers humor. Readers love to laugh and tend to shy away from works that are too dark. Modern poetry tends to offer too little humor, not even dark humor.

4. It's sentimental and smarmy. People love poems that make them cry and remember back when--nothing like a good tear jerker to get your day started. I really noticed this in Macedonia, at parties where the rakjia flowed, the hankies and guitars came out, and the sad songs about lost love and lost nations were sung and wailed. These people were intellectuals, too, but they weren't ashamed of their beloved folk songs and poems.

5. The poem is predictable in its rhyme, diction, structure, and, yes, cliches. Poetry that allows the reader to remain in his/her comfort zone is going to stick with him/her emotionally, even intellectuals.

6. The poem tells a story, the narrative about the slippers (red, blue, and black) ties the story together and actually depicts the aging process, using the slippers as a sort of extended metaphor.

7. The poem is generally upbeat in tone and actually has a warped happy ending: I'm not listed in the obits today, so all is well with the world. Wow! Why not go out and celebrate with breakfast at Denny's? It's a glorious day to be alive and not a good day to die! What's not to like about that?

8. The poem is timeless, no tedious references to popular culture that will fade within a few years and require extensive footnoting. Its meaning will be as accessible in 2108 as it is today.

9. The poem is slightly ribald ("Of all the grand places my 'Get Up' has been"), but not so much that grandpa couldn't read the poem to his granddaughter. The double entendre allows the elders a "wink, wink" moment as the kiddies have fun with the rhyme and wordplay. Hell, you could read this poem in church.

10. The poem is simple--one does not need pages of literary criticism to decode meaning--it's all right there on the surface. Yet the poem doesn't speak down to the readers; its language is simple, yet descriptive enough to paint a glad-to-be-alive moment in the speaker's life.

It would be so easy to sneer at a poem like "My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went," but in an odd way, this poem has and will continue to endure because it deals with a very common aspect of the human condition: aging. Anyone who is fortunate enough to get older will face the very issues the poem covers. For more of intellectual exercise, one might read Stanley Kunitz's "Touch Me," which covers some of the same themes, albeit on a higher level--although with some multiple readings this is still an accessible poem.

"My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went" will continue to appear on the pages of daily newspapers (whether it's a print version delivered at one's door or appears on a computer screen), whereas most modern poems with all their sophisticated LangPo techniques will fall into obscurity, buried in old dusty and unread books.

One last note: Robert Frost's work endures and will continue to endure because of its layered nuances. We all know that "The Mending Wall" is not just about a fence between two neighbors, nor is "The Road Not Taken" just about a walk in the woods and trying to figure what literal direction to take. Yet a young or less astute reader may very well enjoy those poems on a surface level.

Thus, Frost offers the best that a poet can offer: popular enjoyment and intellectual appeal.

What are your thoughts?

Thread: Why Poets.net Exists and When "Pruning" is Another Name for Squashing....

...Serious Debate.

ADDED 4/28: Today, I received a letter from PEN, which, in support of releasing 38 Chinese imprisoned writers before the Beijing Olympics, quotes Don DeLillo's views on freedom of speech for writers:

A writer's freedom of expression is synonymous with his right to live. Writing is more than a profession and a duty--it is a writer's life-blood, and when the state denies the free flow of language and ideas, it defines itself in important ways in the eyes of the world. The more nearly total the state, the more vivid and living is the imprisoned writer.

Now it might be argued that DeLillo was referring to oppressive societies, and that is absolutely right. Most reasonable people would agree that a government denying its writers freedom of expression is an abomination.

But the same principle could be extended to the oppression of outsider writers in a free society, their views squashed and ignored by "important" publications and forums under the ruse of "civility." In some ways, this kind of oppression is more insidious than the blatant kind because it is widely practiced by those in positions of power and accepted by those who are scrabbling for the top.

Often, those who disagree with the majority viewpoint are trampled by those in power and stepped upon by those on the way up.

April 9, 2008: The "pruning" thread has been "pruned" over at poets.org, so I'm reposting my rationale for Poets.net here:

Poets.net exists because of what has happened [at poets.org] and at another forum.

I assure you all that developing a new forum was not a part of my summer plans.

I used to tell my students (and others) that poets.org was a good space for new writers, but now I'm rethinking that.

ACommoner came to this forum wanting to discuss some important issues facing the literary community (an overall silencing of opposing viewpoints being his major concern). He thought this would be a good place.

But he was told to go somewhere else.

If a poet cannot express (on a forum that accepts public money) controversial ideas and, yes, unpleasant information about known foets, then it's business as usual, no?

In short, if you don't like someone or what he/she has to say, just take away his/her voice, which is apparently what poets.org does with its banning and "pruning" policies.

I welcome ACommoner and whoever else wants to show up at Poets.net.

Jennifer

If you had your text "pruned," feel free to replicate it here.

Book Review Thread: Drama/Playscripts

Have you recently read a playscript that you absolutely loved or hated?

Here's the thread for you.

This thread is open to those of you who want to review the written version of plays (in other words, no reviews of performances), traditional or experimental.

The first signed (not anonymous) and quality review (negative or positive), will be elevated into this post.

Some Guidelines and Caveats:

• No Self-Promotion. There is another thread for self-promoting your work. However, you may add an link to where one can buy and/or see more information about and other reviews of the book.
  
  
• You may use this thread only; book reviews in other comment or incorrect genre threads will be moved or deleted.

• By posting a negative or even neutral review, you do leave yourself open to attack by unhappy and angry authors about your review, and these comments will not be deleted.
  
  
• Anyone may comment on your review, including reviewed authors. If you are an author, you are welcome to respond to the review, but you may not self-promote in this thread. Instead, go to the self-promotion thread. Self-promoting comments will be deleted from this thread.
  
  

Questions? Email me

Book Review Thread: Academic non-fiction (Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, Textbooks)

Have you recently read compelling or just plain silly academic non-fiction?

Here's the thread for you.

This thread is open to those of you who want to review academic non-fiction: literary criticism, literary theory, even textbooks.

The first signed (not anonymous) and quality review (negative or positive), will be elevated into this post.

Some Guidelines and Caveats:

• No Self-Promotion. There is another thread for self-promoting your work. However, you may add an link to where one can buy and/or see more information about and other reviews of the book.
  
  
• You may use this thread only; book reviews in other comment or incorrect genre threads will be moved or deleted.

• By posting a negative or even neutral review, you do leave yourself open to attack by unhappy and angry authors about your review, and these comments will not be deleted.
  
  
• Anyone may comment on your review, including reviewed authors. If you are an author, you are welcome to respond to the review, but you may not self-promote in this thread. Instead, go to the self-promotion thread. Self-promoting comments will be deleted from this thread.
  
  

Questions? Email me

Book Review Thread: General non-fiction (Autobiography, Biography, How-to, Informational, Political, etc.)

Have you recently read general non-fiction that you absolutely loved or hated?

Here's the thread for you.

This thread is open to those of you who want to review non-fiction targeted to a general audience: autobiography, biography, how-to, informational, political etc.).

Academic non-fiction has its own thread.

The first signed (not anonymous) and quality review (negative or positive), will be elevated into this post.

Some Guidelines and Caveats:

• No Self-Promotion. There is another thread for self-promoting your work. However, you may add an link to where one can buy and/or see more information about and other reviews of the book.
  
  
• You may use this thread only; book reviews in other comment or incorrect genre threads will be moved or deleted.

• By posting a negative or even neutral review, you do leave yourself open to attack by unhappy and angry authors about your review, and these comments will not be deleted.
  
  
• Anyone may comment on your review, including reviewed authors. If you are an author, you are welcome to respond to the review, but you may not self-promote in this thread. Instead, go to the self-promotion thread. Self-promoting comments will be deleted from this thread.
  
  

Questions? Email me

Book Review Thread: Memoir (non-fiction)

Have you recently read a memoir that you absolutely loved or hated?

Here's the thread for you.

This thread is open to those of you who want to review memoirs.

The first signed (not anonymous) and quality review (negative or positive), will be elevated into this post.

Some Guidelines and Caveats:

• No Self-Promotion. There is another thread for self-promoting your work. However, you may add an link to where one can buy and/or see more information about and other reviews of the book.
  
  
• You may use this thread only; book reviews in other comment or incorrect genre threads will be moved or deleted.

• By posting a negative or even neutral review, you do leave yourself open to attack by unhappy and angry authors about your review, and these comments will not be deleted.
  
  
• Anyone may comment on your review, including reviewed authors. If you are an author, you are welcome to respond to the review, but you may not self-promote in this thread. Instead, go to the self-promotion thread. Self-promoting comments will be deleted from this thread.
  
  

Questions? Email me

Book Review Thread: Poetry

Have you recently read a poetry collection that you absolutely loved or hated?

Here's the thread for you.

This thread is open to those of you who want to review poetry of all kinds: free verse, form, experimental, LangPo, etc.

The first signed (not anonymous) and quality review (negative or positive), will be elevated into this post.

Some Guidelines and Caveats:

• No Self-Promotion. There is another thread for self-promoting your work. However, you may add an link to where one can buy and/or see more information about and other reviews of the book.
  
  
• You may use this thread only; book reviews in other comment or incorrect genre threads will be moved or deleted.

• By posting a negative or even neutral review, you do leave yourself open to attack by unhappy and angry authors about your review, and these comments will not be deleted.
  
  
• Anyone may comment on your review, including reviewed authors. If you are an author, you are welcome to respond to the review, but you may not self-promote in this thread. Instead, go to the self-promotion thread. Self-promoting comments will be deleted from this thread.
  
  

Questions? Email me

Book Review Thread: Fiction

Have you recently read fiction that you absolutely loved or hated?

Here's the thread for you.

This thread is open to those of you who want to review fiction of all kinds: novels, short stories/fiction, and novellas.

The first signed (not anonymous) and quality review (negative or positive), will be elevated into this post.

Some Guidelines and Caveats:

• No Self-Promotion. There is another thread for self-promoting your work. However, you may add an link to where one can buy and/or see more information about and other reviews of the book.
  
  
• You may use this thread only; book reviews in other comment or incorrect genre threads will be moved or deleted.

• By posting a negative or even neutral review, you do leave yourself open to attack by unhappy and angry authors about your review, and these comments will not be deleted.
  
  
• Anyone may comment on your review, including reviewed authors. If you are an author, you are welcome to respond to the review, but you may not self-promote in this thread. Instead, go to the self-promotion thread. Self-promoting comments will be deleted from this thread.
  
  

Questions? Email me

Forum Thread: First Amendment Issues and Forums

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The First Amendment limits the U.S. Government's power to stifle the voice of its citizens; it's a powerful statement that has served us well for almost 217 years (ratified on December 15, 1791).

An in-depth discussion on The First Amendment

Of course, private forums are not bound by the First Amendment and can ban and stifle speech as they see fit. Poets.net is a private forum, and I, the owner, do not intend to apply for government grants. I'm on my own. Theoretically, I could ban anyone I want.

But what is the rule for non-profit organizations that accept government grants? Are they obligated to follow the First Amendment?

Poets.org, whose forum banned ACommoner and locked his First Amendment thread, does take government money: Number 7 in its FAQ says,

"The Academy is supported by the financial contributions of nearly 8,000 individuals (our members) nationwide. We also receive funding from private foundations, corporations, and government sources such as the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs." [Bold and burnt red letters my emphasis]

If Poets.org is accepting government money, should the administrators and moderators be banning the interchange of free speech, no matter how unpopular and "offensive" to other members?

This case is especially ironic, given that the threads in question have to do with freedom of speech issues.

In any case, the code of silence in the literary field is mostly imposed by those in power and thrust upon the rank and file. Often, those trying to work their way up often buy into the power structure, perhaps because they believe that speaking out will hurt them professionally--and they are probably right.

When Foetry closed in May 2007, ACommoner, the banned poster, and others like him, lost an important conduit for expressing important and controversial ideas--and, yes, snark and smackdown as well.

ACommoner's poets.org banning was a turning point, the primary reason why I purchased the Poets.net domain, a likely money pit for me personally.

I wanted an easily accessible forum (with a one-word dead-on GENERIC term) that would be available to everyone, especially the struggling silenced and disenfranchised poets and writers.

They are why Poets.net exists.

It was simply serendipity that the domain went on the aftermarket at the precise moment I needed it.

It is my hope that this forum becomes a place for lively and heated discussion.

"Forum decorum" can be highly overrated--simply a euphemism for stifling ideas and opinions that those in power deem not worthy.

What do you think?

Jennifer