The introduction to the poetry section of Vol 1, Issue 2, reads: "If poetry is to reclaim a vital pulse in intellectual culture, it must become more difficult." And later: "Colloquial poetry evinces no mystery at all." I politely question the first statement on the grounds of evidence - more difficult than what? Homer, Shakespeare, Ashberry? Lowell, Plath, Young? Gluck, Howe, Flynn, Dickman? I agree there can be merit in difficulty, as is proved by thousands of years of poetic history, but without further stipulations (and I mean more than: "Difficult poetry seeks to question and to complicate, challenging with its nuance the presumptions we bring to bear on experience." I mean, as far as poetry is concerned, no shit) that sounds like the most boring, lifeless thing I can imagine.
I politely disagree with the second statement, again on the grounds of evidence. Colloquial poetry is going to be part of the poetic future whether anyone likes it or not. Poetry written in high-brow, deliberately complex language is really doing well, huh? I used to bash it, too (colloquial poetry, that is - and to provide examples, Young and Dickman are the best of the aforementioned), and bashed rap and hip-hop in favor of classic rock - but classic rock was bashed when it was around; Picasso was a realist before inventing cubism; and Shakespeare didn't write plays for the King and Queen, he wrote for the lower classes. Poetry is about evolution and representation, and saying that colloquial poetry evinces no mystery at all is like bitch-slapping the Beats into obscurity.
I'm not trying to shun this publication, which is a damn good one, but those two phrases really got me down. The poetry in Vol 1, Issue 2, is great poetry, but it is indeed written for the intellectual community - allusions to Icarus, Bruegel, Auden, etc. I'm not saying that art should be compromised for the sake of colloquialism, but that colloquialism, which is really modern language, needs to be adapted. Saying that colloquial poetry can't be mysterious or difficult is like saying French or Spanish can't be mysterious or difficult. Anything is possible in literature, we all know that, and one of modern poetry's greatest assets is its diversity - please, don't kill that.
Colloquialisms of Mind
Aramis — June 2, 2011 - 10:20As an admirer of this journal I feel obliged to challenge these assertions. The preface to the Volume 1 Issue 2 Poetry section details its vision of "difficult" poetry in a manner that is, in my opinion, both nuanced and poetic. The editors qualify their use of the term difficulty in three ways. They state:
Although you blithely dismiss the first point as self-evident, I find it bold. Very few writers think critically concerning the purpose of their art. For most, writing is justified simply by virtue of historical precedent. From such an unexamined perspective, no grander reason is required to justify the writing of poetry than the historical persistence of poetic convention.
The idea that poetry exists in order to complicate is certainly not new. Yet in assigning to poetry this definite function, Literary Laundry has proposed a compelling answer to why so few contemporary poets succeed in altering the intellectual culture of today.
Poetry has, at least historically, remained relevant to those who have dismissed it as unimportant. Many people, for example, have not read The Waste Land and would not consider the poem particularly important in their day to day understandings of reality. Nonetheless, the intellectual consequences of High Modernism have so thoroughly saturated our society that contemporary consciousness is inevitably, at least to some extent, conditioned by the questions and intellectual visions articulated in the poem. Similar points could be made concerning Classical Literature, Shakespeare, or indeed, any work that has achieved the status of the canonical.
When Literary Laundry claims that contemporary poetry no longer holds a "vital pulse" among intellectual culture, it argues that poetry has ceased to be relevant to those who regard it as unimportant.
Does contemporary poetry really question and complicate? Have Billy Collins, Kay Ryan, and Louise Gluck (to name but a few of today’s most decorated poets) really so transformed our perceptions of human experience that their work proves consequential even to those who dismiss it as unimportant?
When one considers the tremendous quantity of poetry produced today, it is remarkable that so little work has demonstrated this transformative power. Despite pretenses to the contrary, far too many contemporary poets neither question nor complicate in any relevant sense.
I certainly encounter far too many “opaque” poems that disguise their intellectual simplicity through the use of linguistic contortion, syntactical confusion, and imagistic strangeness. In my estimation, many of these pieces do in fact reduce to truisms—they present a sound and fury that signifies nothing of particular depth.
On the other hand, I have also encountered many contemporary poets (here Nikki Giovanni comes first to mind) that valorize the reportage of simplistic, trite, and ultimately inconsequential thoughts expressed in accessible, simplistic language. It is in reference to these poets, I believe, that Literary Laundry employed the term "colloquial" in the recent poetry introduction.
Let me be clear—I thoroughly agree that the use of colloquial speech in poetry should not be placed under attack. Colloquial language, like "high" language, serves to construct and condition our realities. As such, colloquial language remains an instrument through which poets can craft work of enduring consequence.
Furthermore, colloquial language is accessible. Its use will certainly encourage more readers to participate in the intellectual conversations that good poetry endeavors to sustain.
Still, I see no reason to praise triteness, even if such a poetic succeeds in garnering a sizable audience.
Of course, it is improper to utilize the term "colloquial" as a substitute for "trite." The Literary Laundry editors should have known better. Such, however, is the nature of a colloquialism.
-Aramis
PS: Your argument concerning Shakespeare's populism is difficult to sustain. Shakespeare remained closely connected with wealthy patrons throughout his career--he dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke the first folio and to the Earl of Southampton both Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Many of Shakespeare's plays were performed at court with The Tempest actually debuting in Whitehall Palace. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare's theatrical company was called The Lord Chamberlain's Men. When James I assumed the English throne, he extended direct royal patronage to the company, resulting in its re-organization as the King's Men.
Revolving-door-poetry
Glue — June 10, 2011 - 22:14Boy I hope someone makes it down here past that previous post. :)
It's funny, after reading that introduction in Vol 1, Issue 1 I also felt an urge to comment on how poetry might best reclaim significance in our modern age. I think I settled on a conclusion that was pretty similar to willgemma's and the author of the first introduction: in order to become relevant again, poetry must reclaim the trust of readers. By 'trust' I mean that the masses need to believe that reading or writing poetry will yield something worthwhile. Whether that "something" involves intellectual gratification or emotional gratification is another debate. At present however, I don't think there is enough 'trust' in this relationship for the lay person to bother reading past the third line. And unless poets across the world agree to write nothing but haikus, this tremendously complicates the goal of this journal and anyone who might share the journal's vision.
I didn't zero in on "colloquial language" but I mostly agree. The reason for this mostly rests on my belief that we should spray the masses with poetry bullets and see what hits. In this vein, I think Shel Silverstein probably influenced people our age (college-aged) more than any poet of the last 100 years. His Where the Sidewalk Ends needed to exist for me to have read Ginsberg. So I think accessibility in poetry is necessary across all levels of sophistication and urbanity.
In fact, that blue collar workers believe poetry to be an upper class luxury is particularly damning. Of course in reality, poetry has exclusively been an upper class luxury. But we should probably have evolved beyond that by now.
I've digressed a bit; but my main concern with that issue's introduction is that the author seems to be suggesting that we try to move backwards.
Defining what entails "difficulty", as used in that introduction, is so tricky. I suspect that the author intended to model 'difficulty' after the modernists. And I agree that that is like "bitch-slapping the Beats". But not just the Beats. Because if you bitch-slap them, you'd probably have to bitch slap all the less prolific movements that followed modernism and gained prominance after the Beats. Take Creeley for example. I think I read "I Know a Man" when I was in the 2nd grade. I appreciated it then and appreciate it more now. My seven year old self had a pretty inflated sense of his intellegence but in retrospect I really don't think I was all that smart. In other words, the poem was easy.
If you've made it this far then I think it's clear that I am a fan of pretention and affectation. So I'm honestly not suggesting we shun more advanced language. In my experience, however, the simple poems strike me much deeply than the complex ones. I guess I’m echoing Aramis’ post. But then, it was a very elaborate post. It’s just that I don’t want to see simple poetry go away. Moreover, I think my issue with the introduction probably regards how vague “difficulty” was defined by the author. If there’s one sentence to summarize my intent behind this post it is this one by CS Lewis:
“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then”
Full Disclosure:
I was not a fan of "The Wasteland" when we first read it in high school. I definitely see its merits but there's something about going out of your way to alienate commoners does not sit well with me.