What is a Poem? What isn't a Poem?
What is a Poem? What isn't a Poem? tr gates, 1/08/2011
What is a Poem? What isn't a Poem?
What is Poetry? What isn't Poetry?
I love the proliferation at various times of texts claiming to answer these questions. Better, is that most texts written on the subject are by those not appreciated beyond their institutions as Poets. Convenient. I've noticed the same when it comes to many telling others what is good prose narrative, yet their own never getting beyond the same where any think their words of advice worth passing on.
At any given time what at another time is said to be Poetry is decried, at best, in the same regards. Walt Whitman was considered a rebel with his free verse. Langston Hughes was banned at various times while he was alive, and since his repose from this world, for his non-institutional, yet sing-song Poetry, yet some today even claim as the precursor to modern hip-hop verse. Arthur Rimbaud, was at the same time applauded by Victor Hugo as brilliant, and abhorrded by many of the published, and older as well as institutionally more acceptable, European Poets of the same time. Anna Akhmatova was accused of having an affair with another writer, or more, simply because of the intimacy of her verse, yet the truth is that she never met some of these correspondents face to face. Dorothy Parker wrote great 'hate Poetry,' and was accepted, as such, in the 'men's world' of writers in the flapper period at their round table. Dorothy Sayers wrote stage plays and some verse, yet only respected the actor who could be on their mark on time, know their lines well, and get them said believably (she had no concern of their belief system if they could not act well the lines she had written. She also was accepted by the inklings, and she wore slacks/pants, way ahead of Americans, because she thought her gender looked better in them, and that there was no reason why her gender should accept to attired uncomfortably. Ha.) Add to this, Haiku, like the Psalster in another part of the world, was both liturgical and folk Art via landscapes via words. Yet today it is disputed as both brilliant, yet argued about what is truly Haiku.
I've known Artists to say they refuse to paint in realism, and forget to say aloud that they could not do so if they wanted. It doesn't change the relative value of their work, but it does change whether they are as credible as the person rejecting the accepted form for their own by first demonstrating that they are able to paint in the style they reject. The same, I believe, can be said for Poetry. I do know form and meter, as well as rhyme, even as I recognize the various Poetic formulas used in spiritual texts of various traditions. Personally, I love them all, but I do not prefer them all.
I do prefer the narrative, free verse, romantics and existentialists. My preference, today, is for contemporary minimalism, like Jack Gilbert, or from another angle, Sharon Olds. Yet I also enjoy Mary Oliver as well as Charles Simic. I still love to reread aloud James Wright, and never tire of Gwendolyn Brooks, Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich or Robert Hass. This being said, I love to read aloud, sometimes even in the place of my own work, in public the words of the Russian Poet Anna Akhmatova or those of the American Poet Walt Whitman. Go ahead, read Whitman's 'From pent up aching rivers,' and watch the listening audience squirm.
Poetry is Poetry, and as it is with other Art forms, it is known. Louis Armstrong, by example, when once asked what Jazz was, quickly responded, 'If you need to ask, then it is obvious that you do no know.'
I have little respect for the writing of those to presume what is and what is not Poetry. It either works beyond the writer, or it doesn't. This in not necessarily a test of what is good or not, but it is a test of what we as people applaud as worthwhile Poetry and not. Perhaps this is sort of a blend of existential romanticism upon my part, but it is what we know. We only know the Poetry beyond its time because others have read them aloud and shown appreciation for them. The other works? Whether good or not, whatever this means, we know them not because they had little enough impact upon the reader and or listener of the verse. (I am intentionally being redundant here.) The same, I believe, can and should be said about prose, no matter the style.
What is Poetry? What isn't Poetry? Poetry.
.
What is a Poem? What isn't a Poem?
What is Poetry? What isn't Poetry?
I love the proliferation at various times of texts claiming to answer these questions. Better, is that most texts written on the subject are by those not appreciated beyond their institutions as Poets. Convenient. I've noticed the same when it comes to many telling others what is good prose narrative, yet their own never getting beyond the same where any think their words of advice worth passing on.
At any given time what at another time is said to be Poetry is decried, at best, in the same regards. Walt Whitman was considered a rebel with his free verse. Langston Hughes was banned at various times while he was alive, and since his repose from this world, for his non-institutional, yet sing-song Poetry, yet some today even claim as the precursor to modern hip-hop verse. Arthur Rimbaud, was at the same time applauded by Victor Hugo as brilliant, and abhorrded by many of the published, and older as well as institutionally more acceptable, European Poets of the same time. Anna Akhmatova was accused of having an affair with another writer, or more, simply because of the intimacy of her verse, yet the truth is that she never met some of these correspondents face to face. Dorothy Parker wrote great 'hate Poetry,' and was accepted, as such, in the 'men's world' of writers in the flapper period at their round table. Dorothy Sayers wrote stage plays and some verse, yet only respected the actor who could be on their mark on time, know their lines well, and get them said believably (she had no concern of their belief system if they could not act well the lines she had written. She also was accepted by the inklings, and she wore slacks/pants, way ahead of Americans, because she thought her gender looked better in them, and that there was no reason why her gender should accept to attired uncomfortably. Ha.) Add to this, Haiku, like the Psalster in another part of the world, was both liturgical and folk Art via landscapes via words. Yet today it is disputed as both brilliant, yet argued about what is truly Haiku.
I've known Artists to say they refuse to paint in realism, and forget to say aloud that they could not do so if they wanted. It doesn't change the relative value of their work, but it does change whether they are as credible as the person rejecting the accepted form for their own by first demonstrating that they are able to paint in the style they reject. The same, I believe, can be said for Poetry. I do know form and meter, as well as rhyme, even as I recognize the various Poetic formulas used in spiritual texts of various traditions. Personally, I love them all, but I do not prefer them all.
I do prefer the narrative, free verse, romantics and existentialists. My preference, today, is for contemporary minimalism, like Jack Gilbert, or from another angle, Sharon Olds. Yet I also enjoy Mary Oliver as well as Charles Simic. I still love to reread aloud James Wright, and never tire of Gwendolyn Brooks, Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich or Robert Hass. This being said, I love to read aloud, sometimes even in the place of my own work, in public the words of the Russian Poet Anna Akhmatova or those of the American Poet Walt Whitman. Go ahead, read Whitman's 'From pent up aching rivers,' and watch the listening audience squirm.
Poetry is Poetry, and as it is with other Art forms, it is known. Louis Armstrong, by example, when once asked what Jazz was, quickly responded, 'If you need to ask, then it is obvious that you do no know.'
I have little respect for the writing of those to presume what is and what is not Poetry. It either works beyond the writer, or it doesn't. This in not necessarily a test of what is good or not, but it is a test of what we as people applaud as worthwhile Poetry and not. Perhaps this is sort of a blend of existential romanticism upon my part, but it is what we know. We only know the Poetry beyond its time because others have read them aloud and shown appreciation for them. The other works? Whether good or not, whatever this means, we know them not because they had little enough impact upon the reader and or listener of the verse. (I am intentionally being redundant here.) The same, I believe, can and should be said about prose, no matter the style.
What is Poetry? What isn't Poetry? Poetry.
.
posted by Timothy's at 7:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home