I’d like to offer a great big thanks to Timothy Green, editor of Rattle, for getting me thinking on this. He commented on a former blog post about the nature of didacticism and I wanted to respond in a way that calls for more than a simple comment on a post. Here’s his comment:
The problem with didacticism isn’t that you take a position, it’s that you take it from the start — maybe it’s as simple as the reader’s trust, and being suspicious of rhetoric. Although I think it’s more than that — I think it’s hard to write a poem that isn’t dull without surprising yourself.
Bear in mind that didactic poetry is instructional and, as such, its purpose is to teach. Now, I come from the position that there is a place for didacticism in poetry. I think that all poetry is, in some sense, instructional, but the problem with much of the poetry that seeks to be instructional as an end in itself is that its instructions are preachy and detract from the poetry. I believe that poetry must always strive to be poetry first and anything else secondarily.
That said, however, I take issue with Tim’s opening statement here. He likely didn’t intend it the way it sounds, but this is how I took it. Where you start out with a position that you believe and you write a poem to defend that position. Tim’s statement makes me think that he believes that isn’t appropriate, but I think otherwise. There are many great poems that do just that. One such poem is Archibald MacLeish’s “Ars Poetica.”
In “Ars Poetica”, MacLeish sets out to tell us what a poem should be. Right from word one he takes a position and he sticks to it. All the way down to his final line, that poem makes one point. Every line contributes to the point. It’s a fabulous exercise in polemics. He doesn’t say what he needs to say in every way possible, but he does say it in every way that it needs to be said in order for the poem to make its point. And he took his position right from the start.
I think that’s what good poetry does, but I also agree with Tim’s last point. It’s hard to write a poem that doesn’t surprise yourself. I think Archibald MacLeish would honestly say that he did surprise himself in writing “Ars Poetica”. The lines are surprising, not for what they say, but in how they say it. Again, that is a mark of good poetry.
Pardon Me For Being A Wise Ass
I’d like to thank Jim Murdoch for his response to my last blog post. I think anyone who reads my blog long term has figured out by now that I don’t believe that a poem is a poem just because somebody decided to throw some lines on a page and call it a poem. My point for that post was two-fold: No. 1, I just wanted to be a wise-ass and make fun of myself a little bit, and, secondly, just prove that I’m a bit of a contrarian on these matters. I don’t follow rules too well. I prefer to deal with principles because principles are flexible; rules are not. That doesn’t mean that everything is equal. To echo the words of the Apostle Paul, the author of much of the Christian New Testament, all things are permissible, but not all things are profitable. In other words, anyone can call himself a poet and just toss words onto the page, but the real test of one’s work is not what he himself thinks of it, but what the aggregate of posterity thinks of it.
The Many, Many Types Of Poetry
I’d like to issue a third thank you. This one to G.M. Palmer who writes the Strong Verse blog. He’s drawn a bit of a line in the sand over there about what constitutes good poetry and what doesn’t. I certainly give him credit for his passion. I like many of his ideas and agree with them. But he’s got a few as well that I think are a bit stuck in the barn.
What I do like about him is his willingness to promote narrative long-term poetry. I too believe that it’s time to bring back the long form narratives, though not necessarily in the traditional rhyme and meters of old. Nevertheless, his passion is commendable.
Where I do take issue with him is in his insistence that avant garde poetry and Spoken Word forms are not poetry. While my readers know that I’m not preferential to the avant garde, I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss them on the basis that we don’t like them. Just because I don’t like somebody’s style or techniques doesn’t mean that what I do is superior to what they do. Palmer’s polemics leave much to be desired and I’ve found that, by reading his blog, he often contradicts his own principles.
For example:
- In his “Modern Aesthetics As Sola Fide” post he criticizes contemporary poets for their “it’s poetry because I say it is” position then he turns around in less than one week later and makes the argument that Language Poets, Spoken Word poets, and avant gardeists are bad because he says they are. Well, I think he owes it to us to defend his position with some examples rather than saying Google will lead you to the self-evident truths. Sorry, bad positing.
- In his bio he says his favorite book is The Divine Comedy by Dante then he says in “Why I am a Skeptic” that he dislikes anything trendy or experimental. This is really quite laughable. Dante himself was an experimenter. All great poets are. Dante’s experimentalism is evident in his use of the terza rima, which was never used before he employed it in The Divine Comedy. Dante’s work went on to inspire Petrarch and Chaucer, who borrowed the form for English literature. Other English language poets followed, all the way down to William Carlos Williams, who is perhaps an iconic figure in the avant garde traditions. Personally, I’ve got no use for any poet who doesn’t step outside of the ranks and do a little experimenting. Who wants to read the same rehashed lines over and over again?
Rather than wear myself out poring over every word of his blog, I’ll just stop right there. I am not setting myself up as opposition to Palmer’s ideas. I simply think he should communicate them better. I like what he has to say in “A Declaration on the Revision of Poetry”, but we can’t get too wrapped up in the language of forms.
To say that no one reads poetry today because “artsy journals” publish crap is ludicrous. People stopped reading poetry when they could just flip on the channel and watch Uncle Miltie wearing a dress and smoking a cigar. Poets have to stop dreaming about the future halcyon days when poetry makes a big comeback. We should instead put our overactive imaginations to work and produce good, imaginative literature for the people who appreciate it. What do I care if my audience is 500 or 5 million? I hope, of course, that it’s 5 million, but I’m not holding my breath.
While Palmer’s declaration has merit, I wouldn’t expect it to revive interest in poetry. People just aren’t going to flock to Borders Books to buy the latest issue of Palmer’s grand opus. They might, but they’ll only do so if their friends tell them it’s good enough to spend their money on. Otherwise, they’d rather watch Homer Simpson.
Poets have got to quit blaming each other for the problems that we find. It isn’t Ron Silliman’s fault that your books don’t sell on Amazon. It isn’t some vaguely-defined School of Quietude’s responsibility to ensure that the avant garde poets are represented in the great poetic pantheon. These kinds of ridiculous assertions are just rhetoric that gets us nowhere. If you don’t like concrete poetry then don’t read it. Someone else may love the hell out of it. That’s their business. Leave it alone.
Today, there are more poets writing poetry than there ever have been in U.S. history. There are also fewer non-poets reading it. Dana Gioia noticed that 20 years ago. He wrote a manifesto and it was widely distributed. Still, even after the New Formalists waged their hostile takeover and ransacked the halls and walls of academe and the NEA, fewer people care about poetry. I’m not going to cry about it. Ultimately, poetry will live on in some form. If it’s a form that I don’t appreciate then at least I’m glad that it’s still alive.
How Many Types Of Poetry Are There?
The answer to the question, “How many types of poetry are there?” is this: As many as people read. The poetry tent is big enough to hold the Language Poets, the New Formalists, and everyone in between. It’s big enough for lyric poetry and narrative poetry. It’s even big enough for a few lyric-narratives. Perhaps we’ll all have to tolerate a little bad poetry in order to enjoy the good, but the good that is there is really good so why let the rest get us down?
This isn’t some “live and let live” manifesto. It’s a hope that poets will take the time to learn from each other. I think you can learn good poetics from bad poetry. I also think you can pick up bad habits from good poetry. The real issue is, What are you doing to make yourself as good a poet as you can be? And don’t spend all your time fixating on the different types of poetry. Rather, take some time out to invent a type of your own.
Related posts:
I’ve already gone on at length about the it’s-a-poem-because-I-say-it-is school of thought in my own blog especially this post:
http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-poem-because-i-say-it-is.html
What I find myself bring up more and more is the simple questions: Why? I’ve just exchanged a few e-mails with a poet I ran into on Zoetrope on my old whipping boy, line breaks, and the bottom line was that he really didn’t think too much about them at all, despite being able to cite numerous example of poets who had used these breaks to good effect; he did what felt right. He’d never really asked himself why he did what he did.
Now poetry treads a fine line between feeling and thought; they’re not mutually exclusive terms but I do find that poets generally speaking fall into these two camps. Perhaps that’s a topic for another post. I doubt I’ll beat you to it. I already have a backlog that needs attention.
Jim Murdochs last blog post..Aggie and Shuggie 5
Thanks for the link, Jim. Good read.
I think the one question poets should ask the most is, “Why?” And they should ask it more of themselves than they should anyone else. If you don’t know, who does?
I think if more poets did ask themselves that question, when they’re asked, “Why do you call that a poem?” then the answer wouldn’t be “because I say it is.” They’d have given it some thought and could give a good reason why a splattering of words could be called a poem. Something beyond, “Well, it has line breaks.”
“Where I do take issue with him is in his insistence that avant garde poetry and Spoken Word forms are not poetry.”
I think you’re over-reading me a bit here. “Poetry” dependent upon its look on the page is not poetry but 2d art. This includes most language======= poetry but not all the avant garde. Spoken word is poetry but poetry tied too closely to the performer — that is, the performance is the star, not the words.
“Just because I don’t like somebody’s style or techniques doesn’t mean that what I do is superior to what they do.”
Just to be snarky, egalitarianism is awfully mid-20th century.
“are bad because he says they are”
I was (and am) tired of the double-standard in poetic criticism. Silliman, et al, can dismiss a poem as being from the “school of quietude” or “good for what it is” without being called out on their poor scholarship. I say langpo is 2dart and people flip out. Eh. You’re right, of course, the burden of proof is on me — it’s just that I don’t care so much about proving those folks are writing crap as saying that it’s simply self-evident and that we need to move on to better poetry.
“he dislikes anything trendy or experimental. This is really quite laughable. Dante himself was an experimenter”
This is totally a mis-read. I don’t like things that are trendy and experimental 1) without purpose and 2) if that’s the only thing they are. None of the Vita or the DC is experimental only to be experimental. Apart from that — Dante’s experiments are things that are supposed to be experimental — stretching the meaning of words, creating new words when you need them, playing with meter and rhyme to create meaning in the poem. These are good experiments real LHC stuff, not flashy high-school chemistry presentation poetry.
“We should instead put our overactive imaginations to work and produce good, imaginative literature for the people who appreciate it.”
This is what I’m saying. What I’m also saying is that the group of American readers (approx 100 million people) is far larger than the group of American poetry readers (1 million people) and that poetry should be able to capture more than 1% of the reading market. The reason that it doesn’t is because the poetry publishing industry wouldn’t know a market if it was smacked across its arrogant ass. All it knows is contests and university coffers. So much so that the best-selling poetry book of modern times (Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust) is completely ignored within pobiz/academic circles.
“even after the New Formalists waged their hostile takeover”
Hardly a complete takeover, though the frequent appearance of formal poetry in Poetry and The New Yorker is heartening.
“Perhaps we’ll all have to tolerate a little bad poetry in order to enjoy the good, but the good that is there is really good so why let the rest get us down?”
Again, all egalitarianism gets you is middle-of-the-road unimpressive schlock. Instead of pretending that the shite and the glorious can coexist on the same shelf, we need to be wiping our rear ends.
Crappily,
GMP
G.M. Palmers last blog post..Why I am a Skeptic
Thanks for clarifying your points, but I think you are misreading me as well. If you’ll read my blog carefully, I’m no egalitarian. I’m libertarian, not just politically, but in my poetic allowances. That means I don’t have to agree with someone to allow them to continue in their vein, but it also means I don’t have to disagree with someone to disapprove of their means. I think your approach is to effectively bang your head against the wall. If that gets you off, more power to you.
That said, here are the holes in your philosophy:
I’d prefer to focus on improving my own poetics and just let the “crap” take care of itself. To spend countless hours moping over stuff I don’t like is a waste of my time.
Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to continue the debate, but at least have an open mind.
I also recognize a sonnet when I hear it. If you took a sonnet and threw it in without line breaks, it would still be a sonnet:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; coral is far more red, than her lips red: if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; if hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, but no such roses see I in her cheeks; and in some perfumes is there more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go, my mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: and yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, as any she belied with false compare.
Still sounds like a sonnet. Poetry does not need any organized presence on the page. Beowulf, for instance, is not delineated in the MS. It is an aural art form. Line breaks are nothing more than the equivalent of a musical staff. We don’t confuse sheet music with actual music. Neither should we confuse sheet poetry (poetry on the page) with actual poetry (poetry out loud).
If you want to see a double-standard, argue poetics with a langpo person. But again, I apologize for lax scholarship.
Do you have proof that Bible readership has declined? Have Bible sales declined as a percentage of total books sold? Poetry sales have. There are 100 million Americans who read 3 or more books each year (and they buy slightly more than that). But only 3 million books of poetry are purchased each year — less than one % of the total.
Why? Apart from your readership problems (TV, movies, etc.) have you ever tried to find a book of contemporary poetry (apart from Jewel’s Night without Armor back in 1997 or so) in a book store? You have to look for it. Magazines, novels, non-fiction — they all stare you in the face when you walk into the big box. Where is poetry? Shoved on some back shelf inbetween academic writing and philosophy. The lack of poetry readership may be tied in part to a theoretical decline in general readership but you cannot deny that it is directly tied to marketing.
Open mind about what?
Michael
G.M. Palmers last blog post..Why I am a Skeptic
And about Libertarianism. . .
Libertarianism as a philosophy — “do what you want as long as you don’t bother me” cannot work in a Democracy. Especially a fully-functioning (that is, media-controlled) one like we have — majority rules and taste-makers tell the majority what to think.
Telling someone “hey, what you think, even though that’s diametrically opposed to what I believe, that’s okay man” just won’t work if the other side is armed with votes and guns and money.
So if I want poets to write better poetry that will capture the interest of a wider range of readers (that is, non-poets), I have to say not only “write long-form narrative poetry and there’s nothing wrong with rhyme and meter” I also have to say “langpo isn’t poetry” and “most contemporary poetry sucks (that is, “Modern poetry is sick”).” Not because I’m trying to define what good poetry is but also what it is not.
GMP
G.M. Palmers last blog post..Why I am a Skeptic