RE: The Poet In The Twenty-First Century

It's taken me a while to respond to this because I wasn't sure if I agreed with the premise. But I didn't want to be quarrelsome simply for the sport of it. I also realise I don't really like poetry being written about, especially in an academic way. Even though I do it myself. Even though I write poetry. It’s a terrible tension. Maybe it’s a schoolroom spectre: 'Write an essay on the role of the poet in the 21st century'. My first line of defense would be to ask a poet and, being me, I'd go for one who'd say the least. 'Psst, Emily what do you think?' And Ms Dickinson might offer me, not a line from a poem but from a letter: 'Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?' And that line, which she wrote to the literary critic, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, sums up what I think is important about poetry; Is it alive? I'm not sure I believe in the poet as spokesperson. I want the poet to be anarchic and say the unspeakable. And whether that’s from hovering over the fires within or contemplating the mire without, I don't really care. I just want it said. And well. Yes, I agree, the poet must 'render his or her experience so that it evokes response in the reader'. But they must surrender too, to poetic vocation so that they can speak for themselves alone as well the world at large.

Yes spot on. Saying the unspeakable and casting light in those other places is spot on. Poetry having to be alive is spot on. If its alive it generates its own energy and lives on in inspiring the reader, even if only for a moment. Having said that, I'm hopeless at poetry!

Sorry everyone. I intended to reply to this topic and managed instead to create a new topic. What a cock-up! Poetic justice perhaps.

I found myself questioning Ssor's assumptions. There always has been an individual voice in poetry, Sappho, Catullus's complaints to Clodia... The Song of Solomon. Poems in the social sphere exist alongside municipal music for special occasions. There are plenty of soloists and swing bands to compliment the municipal music. Look at Marvell's tribute to Oliver Cromwell- Upon the Death of The Lord Protector- and Tennyson's tribute to the Duke of Wellington (thought at the time to be his best poem). Now we read The Garden and In Memoriam - the personal record of one man overcoming the universal problem of bereavement, I don't think grief and its various stages leading to resignation has ever been so well documented. The personal is always rubbing up against the public. SSor also assumes that 'artists' are all liberal relativists. Why should that be the default political position for artists? It's very far from my own beliefs. All that aside poetry has to offer a moment of insight, connect with the reader and create emotion. I often look at Raymond Carver's short story A Small Good Thing which does terrible things to the reader in a few pages, likewise Wilfred Owen's poem Futility. Reading poetry today I ask myself do I care? Am I any the wiser?

I’ve taken to carting around Ian Hamilton’s Against Oblivion: Some Lives of the Twentieth-century Poets. It is, as the jacket blurb says, an ‘idiosyncratic, controversial and thoroughly enjoyable examination of forty-five 20th century poets’. You know the arch- from Kipling to Plath. Hamilton has produced essays that combine succinct biographies with literary criticism. They help disperse any notion of universality for either the lives of poets (although addiction to alcohol, sex, fame –threads its way through the narratives) or the nature of poetry itself. That’s why I like it. I know I can flip from page to page and find several versions of truth about poets and poetry. Today’s encounter was with Conrad Aiken who believed poets should learn from the Symbolists to construct worlds ‘shimmering with ambivalence and ambiguities.’ Yesterday it was DH Lawrence, proud of his’ instantaneous’ verse. I don’t know who will surprise me tomorrow, but I will be surprised.

It's crazy to be talking about Darwinian 'disagreements,' the Western world has been hijacked not only by terrorism but by an enforced and balls-aching Islamic discussion. Why do we have to go back to the nineteenth century where Tennyson's poem In Memoriam already dared to suggest a world 'red in tooth and claw' where life was meaningless biological processes? I can't help thinking that liberal relativism is to blame; there's a patronizing smugness in the argument (advanced by 'well-meaning people) that hard-line Muslims living in the UK will slowly be seduced by the beneficial effects of democracy. It won't happen. We need a form of Enlightened Fundamentalism which states that Enlightenment values ARE better, that stoning people is wrong, (even if it's called lapidation!) and that Muslims get away with doing horrible things to other Muslims (blowing them up in Mosques) which goes without comment from the Islamic community. We live with the very real threat that Enlightenment values will only be shared by a very tiny minority. As a writer who's always avoided politics, I find it hard not to respond to this situation. The public role of spokesman for a set of shared cultural values which you talk about is with us now, more than ever.

Tennyson's to blame? My God his estate will be on to you! The world may be 'red in tooth and claw' but Tennyson hung on to his humanity despite the agonizing thought of a creator-less vacuum and the chilly wastes of space... Even without religion he recognized morality. I'm not convinced by In Memoriam's happy ending, as lovely as those bells are it doesn't completely ring true. He lived this modern dilemma through his poem. I want to put in a good word for humanity in the West. I know this is cultural cherry-picking but this site encourages it! Look at Beethoven, Brahms, the NHS, Captain Beefheart, Chet Atkins, Vince Lee, Vincent Price, Gene Vincent... We are wonderfully unnatural so can live, to a certain degree, outside nature. "All societies have a blueprint which can guide them out of trouble." What blueprints? Are you taking about instruction manuals for washing machines? Where can get I hold of mine? 'light can not be shone indiscriminately into other societies...' Yet extremists have no hesitation in plunging our world into darkness. I believe in the absolute superiority of Enlightenment values, all this pussy-footing round other people's cultural sensibilities is madness as we roundly trounce our own. Cultural relativism is absurd: human sacrifice is always wrong- would we be making excuses for the Aztecs if they were around today because of their nice jewelery?

A truly wonderful thread. I mean it. Thing is I feel like the man in the pub on 'The Fast Show': I find myself agreeing with everyone! Seriously, I have found reading this very interesting, but have followed Twain's advice: 'Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and to remove all doubt.'

I also find this threat very interesting and enjoyable. May I add that Rainer Maria Rilke, the world famous poet warned again and again of falling into the trap of personalization. He wrote of things and not about himself. He, as a person, is not immediately perceptible in his poems. He only is the medium through which the objects pass. Personality of the poet disappears behind the consciousness of the artist. He no longer describes the impressions the object makes on him but describes the object as it it in itself. This is especially so in his New Poems and for me, a great Rilke fan, it is what it's all about. All those poetical sentimentalists one finds on most poetry sites should learn about this great master and his teachings. Yutka

I had posted this article on poetry in my Buffalo stories collection. I thought it might be relevant to this discussion. J.X.M Poetry is amongst the most treasured of our oral traditions. Hundreds of years ago, poets sat around smoky peat fires reciting tales of their ancestors to an audience of the unlettered. The rhyme schemes and other devices made memorization easier for the poet. Few works were written down. The rhythmic ululation of words entertained the audience with heroic stories of slain dragons and great deeds by those who had ccome before. It was a much treasured experience for all who heard it. During the middle ages newspapers, as we know them, did not exist in Europe. Traveling bards would appear at the castles and guild halls, reciting epics that served as the news of the day. They also served as oral historians for the various nobles that they entertained. They were paid with bed and board. Even in those days poetry was a hard business to make a living at. The audience wanted to be entertained. Obliging bards crafted grand epics like Beowulf to please their listeners. In later centuries sagas would serve the same purpose. Shakespeare in 17th century England detailed the foibles of his era. Kipling extolled the exploits of the Britissh Colonial Raj in India. Tennyson, with his stirring Charge of the Light Brigade, gave praise to the military exploits of Great Britain in the nineteenth century. William Blake created new lands and far away adventures with his works. The novel and the short story had yet to dawn on the collective psyche of the modern era. With all due respect to the technical aspects of writing poetry, I think many of us are enchanted simply by the musical resonance of the rhyming and metered syllables. Like singing in the shower, we repeat favored passages in our heads, enjoying again the experience of hearing them over and over again. The soothing sounds of assonance or the memory catchers like rhyme schemes and alliteration are clever constructions that tickle the ear and give a piece rhythm and cadence. Onomatopoeia gives our fancy a target to focus on. “Moo,” “Baaa” and other animal sounds tug at our imagination and place the creatures vividly within the body of the work, giving it texture, life and yes, fun. They also aid in developing the most treasured aid of the poet, imagery. With an artful turn of phrase, or a skilled double entendre, a poet can evoke a smile or make a listener think of whole ranges of thoughts using his imagination. Constructing so glib and artful a balance is not a task that comes readily to he pen. An array of technical devices aid the poet in getting his message across. Iambic pentameter, dactyl tetrameter and other measures of line foot are a means of mechanically attempting to insert rhythm and cadence to a work. We speak naturally with a certain cadence, one that is pleasing to the ear of the listener. Trying to write that way is not so easy. The right word or construction may have to be contorted and reshaped a dozen times until it fits into that mysterious verbal melody that is soft upon our ears. To configure that illusive manner of speech, you have to first parse the lines that you have written to determine if the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables and number of their groupings fits harmoniously into the work at hand. Like a tribal drumbeat, we seek a primitive rhythm that will aid the imagery constructed to evoke a mind picture in the ears and imagination of the listener. Our own body rhythms respond to a structured and repetitive musical beat. Walk near any dance floor and you will see people swaying to the rhythm of the structured acoustical presentation. So too with Poetry. Say things in the right cadence and your listener's will respond, mesmerized by the drum beat of your message. It is a task much sought after but difficult to achieve. For the gifted, playing with these word combinations can be a mental exercise of great pleasure. Picture a Byron ,Keats or Sandburg painting verbal artifice on an imaginary musical score. They have to blend the imagery of the idea transmuted with the aural conveyance that delivers it, all in a rhythmic undulation of sight and sound that will tantalize and amuse the listener. Sometimes, they create new words and sounds to express their ideas . An artful contraction of a word or maybe a rhyming nonsensical utterance might be just the right sound that fits into the verbal mosaic. Sometimes, the rules are followed, sometimes ignored. It is the end result that justifies the verbal means. If it works, everything if well and good. You can picture some of the masters evolving motifs that are variations on their own written themes. They are experimenting with form and texture to create new mediums that will better express their thoughts. E.E.Cummings and others are the extreme in terms of form but they are by no means the first to play with a set of words and twist it to a desired end. Typography they call it. It is a visual setting of letter type so that it sets up symmetrically on a page, pleasing to the eye. Altering this format can create motion or disorder or a dozen other visuals. It is still a formatic novelty in poetry. Playing with format gives rise to a central question of poetry. Why are you writing this stuff and what is it supposed to mean? Does your embedded imagery support the message you wish carried to the listener or are you just laying down a visual rosharch ink blot that will entice the reader to draw his/her own conclusions? Do you want your message clearly understood or are you offering the reader a acoustical treasure hunt? In that same vein, are you writing this piece for your own enjoyment or that of others? Is public acclaim your goal or do you wish to entertain and enlighten your readers. These are pressing questions best answered before you ever write anything down. Poetry, as an art form is of tremendous benefit to writers of all genres. Economy of expression is a wonderful by product. In poetry you condense a chapter of verse to a few lines and earn the undying appreciation of the readers. Rhythm of expression is also a plus. You read at certain speeds just as you speak. The increasing speed of the cadence can signal rising action or dramatic denouement. It works both in poetry and in prose. Embedded symbols, the life of poetry, give texture to prose. The artful imagery sets the mood and stage for the ideas we wish to convey. They do so subtly and almost unconsciously, making the reader draw the picture for him/her self. Lastly, poetry brings whimsy, caprice and sometimes just plain fun to writing. It conveys a range of emotions quickly and artfully so that the reader is entranced by the artful flow. Whenever we write an artful passage, we do so standing on the shoulders and imitating the forms of a long line of wordsmiths who have come before us. Originality is a forgotten imitation. J.X.M

JXM, very enjoyable and informative to read. The sweeping view of the past was quite a treat. To lexical acumen, I would suggest vision and voice as two other factors. The sort of thing which separates Blake from Tennyson.

Ssor, Good suggestions. Vision and voice are the mystical ingredients in Poetry. Blake was, to me, the forerunner of Tolkien, J.K. Rowling and others.What he saw from the far away time that he wrote is pretty amazing. He had a vision of tomorow that no one else could see. It is what makes him still attractive to readers today. Tennyson had a wonderful feel for rhythmic undualtions of sound and imagery. The drum beat of his rhythmic verse made you sit up and listen. Robert W. Service, a Canadian Poet, took up his cadence count and entertained audiences with stories of the North American Yukon gold rush. To stand upon their figurative shoulders and cast our own verbal nets into the tenuous ether of cyber space is an honor. J.X.M

I understand that poetry has a timeless quality that has some claim to being a creative entity independent of social context. However, to my mind, it operates at any given moment of history through a very particular social climate which impinges on what is said and how it is written