I think a lot of people have terrible taste. And a lot of people in positions of relative cultural privilege get to exercise that terrible taste over others.
Poetry isn't disappearing because it isn't circulating or isn't being discussed widely. At least that's not the only reason. It is disappearing because it has by and large ceased to be relevant. As these cultural gatekeepers enforce their taste on others by determining that poetry won't advance past an updated version of early 20th Century Georgian Verse or an updated version of early 20th Century radicality. /sigh Spring and all indeed!
But it is relevant, and not disappearing. Not hardly-- there's a vomitous swath of the stuff, mostly horrible. But then there's the other, still, more punkish, more pricked, perhaps, which might be what you're talking about-- we're in an anthem rock/soft rock cocked & cleft world and then there's these other razored and bitter bits bobbing in the backwater. But all the good parts are backwater til later, yes? Isn't that the hope of history? And what's fascinating to me are the wistful creative equivalencies, this business on facebook, e.g. of "what kind of writer are you," so sad and sorry and crippled and mute to have to be a like to be liked, so that ontology's being replaced by a kind of metaphoric metonymy.
Ah, well, to say that "it has by and large ceased to be relevant" means that you may assume that poetry needs to be relevant, which may suggest that you think it may be of use? No? Problematic in some quarters.
Vanessa, a "vomitous swath of the stuff." You are referring to verse with that mouth? Oh, my. My tail quivers between my legs, somewhere between horror and delight.
8 comments:
Is it possible to be smart but non-academic?
Or smart and academic?
Or non-academic and interesting?
It's spring and I'm feeling irritable.
Me too!
I think a lot of people have terrible taste. And a lot of people in positions of relative cultural privilege get to exercise that terrible taste over others.
Poetry isn't disappearing because it isn't circulating or isn't being discussed widely. At least that's not the only reason. It is disappearing because it has by and large ceased to be relevant. As these cultural gatekeepers enforce their taste on others by determining that poetry won't advance past an updated version of early 20th Century Georgian Verse or an updated version of early 20th Century radicality. /sigh Spring and all indeed!
But it is relevant, and not disappearing. Not hardly-- there's a vomitous swath of the stuff, mostly horrible. But then there's the other, still, more punkish, more pricked, perhaps, which might be what you're talking about-- we're in an anthem rock/soft rock cocked & cleft world and then there's these other razored and bitter bits bobbing in the backwater. But all the good parts are backwater til later, yes? Isn't that the hope of history? And what's fascinating to me are the wistful creative equivalencies, this business on facebook, e.g. of "what kind of writer are you," so sad and sorry and crippled and mute to have to be a like to be liked, so that ontology's being replaced by a kind of metaphoric metonymy.
Ah, well, to say that "it has by and large ceased to be relevant" means that you may assume that poetry needs to be relevant, which may suggest that you think it may be of use? No? Problematic in some quarters.
Vanessa, a "vomitous swath of the stuff." You are referring to verse with that mouth? Oh, my. My tail quivers between my legs, somewhere between horror and delight.
But please do read Ms. Parrish's excellent reading of a first novel. And give her a wave. There is so much silence around these readings.
unkle louee sez a poet
needs teeth most best
i only know them
when they chip
"Is it possible to be smart but non-academic?"
I hope so.
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