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Many of those who are young and aspire to be poets today, might have the language they might even have the contacts, but they lack the experience of a life lived to make anything that they say have any real worth.
In reading their words, it seems that they wander through life, with their Nikon or their Pentax D.S.L, snapping a face here or an image there; then scurry home to an apple mac given to them by their huge salaries for companies that pay them to sit behind desks with PC's directly connected to their spinal chord; smiling sweetly, yet shallowly at the poor souls who pass them by. And like tourist's in life, knowing full well that their goal will be reached, they compose a deft simile here, a rich metaphor there, around lines of assonance and alliteration and feel good about what they have achieved. Yet, underneath,where it matters, underneath, where the soul rests, the work simply does not resonate.
In many cases, it is possibly due to the fact that they rely on all what they have been taught to give them a sense of their own self worth. They are the lucky ones, who managed to survive the brutality of the fascist education system that taught them numbers over words, and formulae over real history, which at the secondary level is also a numbers game; while shaping their minds into the dutiful robots that they become: The unthinking, unfeeling, uncaring machines; destined to marry people as pretty as themselves, so once they have their degree they can re-enter the education system and spout more of the same pointless futile masturbation upon the next upcoming generation. Creating even more dutiful machines that will never listen, never feel and always obey.
Yet, spend any time in reading their work and the honesty of its lack of depth cannot be hidden. yes The work might be clever, yet it’s a pastiche, it lacks any originality; moreover it’s fake, and this fakery is sucked up by the establishment as if its champagne rather than what it really is: a watery gruel empty of any sustenance, devoid of any feeling, lacking energy, vitality, creativity and truth. And its drank in in quantity's that are so immense that it has to be a greater reflection upon our devolving society that we would like care to admit. But it does not simply start with the poets, for they are as much a victim of what is happening as anything else.
If you doubt this, then go for a walk around Tesco, and just don't walk, suck up what is there to see! Watch how many people are employed as driver/packers: in other words slaves to those who reside within the digital age -myself included- who are too lazy, or too busy to take the time to walk about a shop and note how people don't actually interact with each other. Listen to the conversations about headache's due to poor light, and sense the sheer frustration of the place.
Then look on the shelves: in a supermarket, thirty years ago, you could get the basics that you then had to work –and work hard- to get together and make a meal with. Now you can by frozen mash potato, sealed in a plastic bag, desiccated chicken carcasses and lamb leftovers hacked and packed in cellophane, where is the effort in cutting the bits off a chicken you have already cooked the day before? And where is the thought that the mash I made, I made by boiling potato adding milk and mashing it with a potato masher. In our quest for ease, we have forgotten that its effort that gives life meaning, we have accepted our packaged lives for ourselves and our children with the mute applause that can only come from utter complacency. This is even a political fact, just look at our pre-packaged leader, a man it seems taken from a supermarket shelf placed into private education given the best his country can offer, and it seems, destined to rule with the same banal complacency we the British nation have made into an art form; and no doubt will eventually export to other nations, as we did with Thatcher's values and football hooliganism. After all, England is the heart of cultural snobbery, its the one thing we export really well.
This is where real poetry stands But this can’t be done with real poetry. For though poetry is a human art form; it is as spiritual as it is honest, and its honesty is shown in the experience of the writer.
In Poetry the writer connects his or her feelings directly to the muse; that is itself the heart of the poet and the collective consciousness that swirls within and around us. Shelley believed it to be a magical force, for as it took hold of him, he wrote like a fucker, without thought about who he annoyed or what belief system he insulted. Yes it went through the drafting system, but what work doesn't? Even this has been through one. But what came out the other end, was a genuine and connected piece of work. The same could be said of Jack Kerouac, who worked for nothing, spent time with people shared his thoughts and his feelings and even -dare I say it- ventured inward with drugs and booze because the world he saw with his eyes, though at times beautiful , sad, joyful and mesmerizing, when considering nature, yet, seemed so empty of any of these values when considering the human species.
Real poets, write life, joy sorrow pain and honesty. Life is not a pastiche, it has to be embraced, it has to be involved, even if it means doing something that the poet doesn't like, or facing something that the poet does not want to face. Everything, even what they can’t see clearly, they take it in both hands and wring it out to dry; and in a world where we live in sterile boxes almost interacting but barely allowing our real feelings to show, then how genuine can the poet really be, how honest can his or her work really be? Perhaps many will disagree with me, they are right to, however, I hope that those who choose to disagree with me, at least respect me for what I consider my honesty.
Today, I learned four new words. Transparent, which means to see something clearly, translucent, to almost catch a glimpse of a thing and opaque, to not see something clearly at all, then finally, and rather comically, discombobulated; which means disconcerted or confused. I learned these words at 46, because I simply was not taught them at school. I only found out I was dyslexic two years ago, So I dedicate this short essay to those words, as they resound and reflect through this text.
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