The marginalization of American poetry.

[Cory]

I was browsing wikipedia the other day, and stumbled upon this paragraph about the state of American poetry today. The sentiment rang true for me and I wondered, with the explosion of digital media in the last 15 years, will there ever be another Whitman, Longfellow, or Frost in terms of popularity among Americans? Has poetry been marginalized into academia and professionalized, or is the paragraph below way off?

Poetry has also become a significant presence on the Web, with a number of new online journals, 'zines, blogs and other websites.

In general, however, poetry has been moving out of the mainstream and onto the college and university campus. The growth in the popularity of graduate creative writing programs has given poets the opportunity to make a living as teachers. This increased professionalization, combined with the reluctance of most major book and magazine presses to publish poetry, has meant that, for the foreseeable future at least, poetry may have found its new home in the academy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_..._United_States

[lesslucid]

I think it's basically true, unless you consider song lyrics to be an outgrowth of poetry. Poetry is partly distinguished from prose by the fact that attention is paid to the way that it will sound when read aloud. It's an audible medium, in other words. So, most people satisfy the urge to hear "poetic stuff" through listening to music. Which you could see as the end of popular poetry, or just another step in a long journey.

So no, there won't be another Whitman. But there was only one to begin with, right? I would have thought that was kind of the point. My favourite poets are Tennyson and Swinburne, and the art they practiced has been dead for even longer.

[Aleck]

In the mainstream, hasn't poetry largely been replaced by recorded music?

[Enidigm]

Another issue with poetry in general, i think , has been women's poetry crowding out men's poetry. Back in the bad ole days poetry was considered the exclusive preserve of men like all kinds of literature, and dealt with more "manly" topics. During the social revolutions of the 50s and 60s that brought far more women into academia, writers like Sylvia Plath brought women's issues and women's experiences to the poem.

I think the problem has been that by and large poetry has been "Plath-izied" and, due to the effect (i can't quite remember if it has been given a specific name) where men abandon careers & jobs, academic or otherwise, that have been "usurped" (to be unkind) predominately by women, poetry is by and large seen as a female thing today.

The other Problem with Plath is that her kind of poetry is basically negative and personal, and while that kind of poetry of course was also made by men, by and large it reflects certain female differences and expectations.

So half the population sees poetry as a girly thing, and the other half see poetry as a way to express their raging emotions about how they hate their boyfriends/husbands. That sounds basically sexist, and in some ways it is; but imo, i'm speaking about the lowest common denominator here. Poetry has lost it's "manliness", and i believe that has contributed to it's decline.

[Hugin]

As others have said, I mostly think it's just that most people inclined to write poetically write songs nowadays.

Also, culturally, I think we approach language in a very literal way nowadays, especially with the rise of TV and the change in the way movies do realism since the 70s.

[Mark Asher]

The point isn't that no one's writing poetry -- tons of very good poetry is being written. There's no one single poet who has captured the imagination of people and become somewhat popular, like Robert Frost did.

We'll never see poets as widely read as we did in the 19th century when someone like Byron was a rock star. Those days are gone forever.

[John Many Jars]

None of the above is untrue. But the reason for poetry surviving in academia is primarily economic --- not because graduates of MFA programs can make a living as teachers as the article says (most of them can't) but because of the way poetry publishing funds itself.

Here's how it works. A small press or university press wants to publish some poetry books, but they know book sales will not allow them to break even. So they announce a contest --- a first-book contest, where the prize is publication. And there's an entry fee. Ten years ago, it was $40 or $50, about the same as a grad school application fee.

So they can count on a horde of aspiring poets sending in fees. They "appoint" a famous or semi-famous poet as the judge of the contest. They give the judge an "honorarium" of several thousand dollars for his or her services; they also whittle the pile of entries themselves to only ten or twenty. The rest of the money funds all their poetry publications for the year.

So poetry book publishing remains academic because all this stuff is kept in the family. Poet-professors give prizes to their friends' students, and they hire each other as judges and for jobs in a complex exchange of favors. I know of some exceptions, but I also know of cases where the outcomes of contests were determined ahead of time (yes, fraudulently --- it's technically mail fraud, because the entry fees are mailed in). And once you know who's friends with who it's very easy to see why x won y.

It's a sort of artificial industry; its customers aren't consumers, but people who aspire to join the ranks of the insiders. It's a racket on their aspirations. On the other hand, if it didn't work this way not much poetry would be published at all.

There is an alternative --- the poetry slam scene --- but the poetry there is so, so, so bad....

[Cory]

^ That sounds so sleazy.

[tiohn]

Originally Posted by Enidigm

Back in the bad ole days poetry was considered the exclusive preserve of men like all kinds of literature, and dealt with more "manly" topics.

Don't you mean "Manley"?

[Jason McCullough]

I have no idea. I'm married to a poet, though, so I've picked up:

1. There's no shortage of poets writing very male stuff. I find them mostly insufferably boring, but to each their own content area I guess.
2. I see an anecdotal gender imbalance going to events, but I have no idea what the gender distribution is like for "accomplished" poets.

It's a sort of artificial industry; its customers aren't consumers, but people who aspire to join the ranks of the insiders. It's a racket on their aspirations. On the other hand, if it didn't work this way not much poetry would be published at all.

Well, if the bulk of people interested in it are themselves produces you'd expect something like that. Kind of like small mod communities where everyone's a maker.

In related news, we saw Martin Espada at the Seattle Arts and Lectures series a couple weeks ok. He's amazingly good live.

[Anaxagoras]

An English grad student friend summed up the problem with poetry nowadays:

"Everybody wants to write poetry, but nobody wants to read it."

[madkevin]

That is very, very, very true. Ever since university, I have met an astonishing amount of poets (or, rather, people who would very much like to be poets) and I always ask "So, who's your favourite poet?" Almost always they have no answer, because they do not actually read any poetry themselves.* And yet, they seem to believe there is a vast audience of people out there desperate to read their poetry.

My big worry is that modern non-genre fiction is probably going the same way, although I have no actual data to prove that. (Mind you, I'm part of the problem. Back when I was a kid I read four or five novels a week, and that lasted well into my early thirties. Now I probably read one new book a year.)

* The one person who did answer it (with a torrent of writers, no less) eventually went on to become a writer herself. I'm sure that's not a coincidence.

[Mark Asher]

Originally Posted by Anaxagoras

An English grad student friend summed up the problem with poetry nowadays:

"Everybody wants to write poetry, but nobody wants to read it."

That's sort of true. I think you get people who buy a few books, a trendy anthology or two and then a couple of books by a favorite poet and leave it at that. So you get people writing and going to open mikes who really aren't that well read but still have some exposure.

I don't know if these would-be poets would somehow reverse the trend towards marginalization if they read more widely. I doubt it. It would help them write better, probably, but I don't see an uptick in book sales doing much to expose poetry to more people. It's a tiny niche at this point and it will remain so.

[kerzain]

I've tried to get into poetry. Not because I want to write it so much as learn to appreciate it so that I can learn from it and apply a certain poetic flair to a turn of phrase or brief descriptions in stories I write.

Unfortunately I can't get into the stuff. Taken in its base form, poetry comes across as either gaudy, bloated, mellow-dramatic or willfully pretentious to me. I can appreciate how a good eye/mind for the poetic can help authors turn otherwise dry prose into something more substantial, but I haven't been able to enjoy a straight out poem.

[AaronSofaer]

I dunno, man. I think prose comes across as far more bloated than any poetry I've read, and Frost especially has some pretty sparse stuff.

I mean, yeah, Byron's "She Walks In Beauty" is somewhat mellow-dramatic, but I think what you really meant was melodramatic. :)

[kerzain]

First off: mellow-dramatic is a step beyond melodramatic.

Also, yea there are bad writers churning out bad prose too.

[McGraw McGraw]

I blame the flarfists.*

Although it's pretty dated now, Dana Gioia wrote a pretty good essay outlining some ideas on how to fix poetry's marginalization. In my opinion, unless people learn that there's enjoyment to be had in the process of unriddling a poem, poetry will remain a subculture.

Also, as an example of poetry that is not melodramatic, bloated or pretentious, I offer Dream Song 4.

*Not really, though I do have an eye on them.

[TimElhajj]

I don't really have a good sense for it, but weren't Kerouac and Ginsberg pretty big poets? I only have been able to get into modern poets, even if they don't have the same kind of name recognition as the 19th century masters. I like Raymond Carter's poetry. James Tate, Richard Hugo, James Wright...

[Cory]

Originally Posted by McGraw McGraw

Although it's pretty dated now, Dana Gioia wrote a pretty good essay outlining some ideas on how to fix poetry's marginalization. In my opinion, unless people learn that there's enjoyment to be had in the process of unriddling a poem, poetry will remain a subculture.

Thanks for that link.

[Eduardo X]

I'm in an MFA program for poetry, and we talk about this pretty much non-stop. I've happily decided that these 3 years will be my super fun time to write a fucking ton and make a ton of contacts that will sustain my writing life in years to come.
And that life will be writing, as I have for the past 13 years, on my own, and eventually trying to get published somewhere.

But I have some problems with poetry, especially with how it is stuck in the university. There are people who come straight from their undergrad programs and into an MFA, and have nearly no life to write about. If that is their focus, and they have talent, their poetry is usually technically brilliant, but dull as a rusty knife. WE NEED MORE LIFE IN OUR POEMS! And we need them to involve interesting subject matter.

I like to hear people speak of Martin Espada. I'm actually procrastinating from writing a paper on him to write this post! But he is the current poet I try to emulate the most. As he said, about writing historical poems, "I really believe that the best stories come out of history."
I have personal poems as well, but they're usually related to my life as a historical factor in our country's history. I lived in a neighborhood being gentrified, and that means that I was part of a major trend in our country. I have struggles to not be a male jerk with my partner, much like my dad is with my mom, and that places me in the struggle for feminism. I am an immigrant from Colombia, and again, that places me in Colombia's history of hemorrhaging upper and middle class folks due to the ongoing war.

I think I just came up with my final paragraph! (Not really.)

Regardless, "famous poets" tend to be the canonized and beloved poets of, as some have noted, the western, white male tradition. People still think of this when speaking of poetry, with everything that has come since to challenge that as some sort of perversion of poetry. But, until poetry is allowed to be everything it wants to be, we're going to continue seeing people mostly hate poetry.

That said, ANYBODY who looks hard enough will find poets they absolutely adore. It's just really hard to find them. There are more poetry journals now than ever before, more books of poetry being published than ever before. Really, one needs to find even 1 poet they like, and then look for where they are published, and build from there.

I love me some Martin Espada, B.H. Fairchild, Joy Harjo, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and... many others.

[Angrycoder]

Originally Posted by McGraw McGraw

Also, as an example of poetry that is not melodramatic, bloated or pretentious, I offer Dream Song 4.

I don't know shit about poetry but that was awesome, thanks for the link.

[Rod Humble]

I dunno Geoffrey Hill and Jack Gilbert are still putting out works that I think hold up to the ancestors.

I like the fact that poetry is economically nonviable and marginalised, not all things are better if they are popular.

[alexlitel]

Originally Posted by McGraw McGraw

Also, as an example of poetry that is not melodramatic, bloated or pretentious, I offer Dream Song 4.

I offer Alien vs. Predator.

[jellyfish]

I really like this thread
I'm going back to bed
Oh wait, something was said
And echoes in my head

And now I must reply
Before I say goodbye
As sunshine lights the sky
And I begin to cry

And it is clear to see
A sleepless night for me
How tired I will be
A night of qt3

[jellyfish]

Booya! American poetry is back, baby!

[Midnight Son]

Images
by Tyrone Green

Dark and lonely on a summer's night.
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Watchdog barking. Do he bite?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Slip in his window. Break his neck.
Then his house I start to wreck.
Got no reason. What the heck?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
C-I-L my land lord!

[lesslucid]

Uh... if this is too long, tell me and I'll delete it:

Poeta Fit Non Nacitur

"How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme?
You told me once 'the very wish
Partook of the sublime.'
Then tell me how! Don't put me off
With your 'another time'!"

The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically;
And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally."

"And would you be a poet
Before you've been to school?
Ah, well! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool.
First learn to be spasmodic --
A very simple rule.

"For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.

'Then, if you'd be impressive,
Remember what I say,
That abstract qualities begin
With capitals alway:
The True, the Good, the Beautiful --
Those are the things that pay!

"Next, when we are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint."

"For instance, if I wished, Sir,
Of mutton-pies to tell,
Should I say 'dreams of fleecy flocks
Pent in a wheaten cell'?"
"Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase
Would answer very well.

"Then fourthly, there are epithets
That suit with any word --
As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce
With fish, or flesh, or bird --
Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,'
Are much to be preferred."

"And will it do, O will it do
To take them in a lump --
As 'the wild man went his weary way
To a strange and lonely pump'?"
"Nay, nay! You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.

"Such epithets, like pepper,
Give zest to what you write;
And, if you strew them sparely,
They whet the appetite:
But if you lay them on too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!

"Last, as to the arrangement:
Your reader, you should show him,
Must take what information he
Can get, and look for no im-
-mature disclosure of the drift
And purpose of your poem.

"Therefore to test his patience --
How much he can endure --
Mention no places, names, or dates,
And evermore be sure
Throughout the poem to be found
Consistently obscure.

"First fix upon the limit
To which it shall extend:
Then fill it up with 'Padding'
(Beg some of any friend)
Your great SENSATION-STANZA
You place towards the end."

"And what is a Sensation,
Grandfather, tell me, pray?
I think I never heard the word
So used before to-day:
Be kind enough to mention one
'Exempli gratiâ'"

And the old man, looking sadly
Across the garden-lawn,
Where here and there a dew-drop
Yet glittered in the dawn,
Said "Go to the Adelphi,
And see the 'Colleen Bawn.'

"The word is due to Boucicault --
The theory is his,
Where Life becomes a Spasm,
And History a Whiz:
If that is not Sensation,
I don't know what it is,

"Now try your hand, ere Fancy
Have lost its present glow --"
"And then," his grandson added,
"We'll publish it, you know:
Green cloth -- gold-lettered at the back --
In duodecimo!"

Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad --
But, when he thought of *publishing*,
His face grew stern and sad.

[Mark Asher]

An Unusual Cat-Poem

My cat is dead
But I have decided not to make a big tragedy of it.

-- Wendy Cope.

[Anaxagoras]

Originally Posted by Eduardo X

But, until poetry is allowed to be everything it wants to be, we're going to continue seeing people mostly hate poetry.

What do you think poetry wants to be?

That said, ANYBODY who looks hard enough will find poets they absolutely adore.

I strongly doubt this. Poetry seems to be driven, at heart, by a love of language. The beauty of language, the rhythm of language, and the challenge of "unpacking a language riddle", to paraphrase another poster. There are many people, including myself, that consider language nothing more than a tool. Playing with language holds no interest for many of us. If the language is used elegantly as a conduit for ideas & viewpoints, then it was language used well.

The difference between poetry & prose seems to be that prose adheres to certain rules which might make it more boring, but it makes it a much more valuable tool for what I want to use language for. Poetry delights in unusual or non-standard language constructions & creative introductions to ideas, which defeat the very purpose of language: clear communication.

BTW... I'd love to hear a different take on poetry, or a better summation of the difference between poetry vs. prose. It's not that I want to hate poetry, it's that it seems thoroughly misguided to me.

[Eduardo X]

Originally Posted by Anaxagoras

What do you think poetry wants to be?


I strongly doubt this. Poetry seems to be driven, at heart, by a love of language. The beauty of language, the rhythm of language, and the challenge of "unpacking a language riddle", to paraphrase another poster. There are many people, including myself, that consider language nothing more than a tool. Playing with language holds no interest for many of us. If the language is used elegantly as a conduit for ideas & viewpoints, then it was language used well.

The difference between poetry & prose seems to be that prose adheres to certain rules which might make it more boring, but it makes it a much more valuable tool for what I want to use language for. Poetry delights in unusual or non-standard language constructions & creative introductions to ideas, which defeat the very purpose of language: clear communication.

BTW... I'd love to hear a different take on poetry, or a better summation of the difference between poetry vs. prose. It's not that I want to hate poetry, it's that it seems thoroughly misguided to me.

I'm by no means an expert on contemporary poetry, but I know of quite a few poets. Tell me some things you're interested in, and I'll try to find you a poem you like.

I am less interested in the beautiful language of poetry, and more interesting in the subject matter it can explore in an easier and usually more engaging fashion than prose.