(no subject)

[bursar42]

I had a response to juniperjune's post of March 23. Sadly, though, the clipboard ate it horribly. There was blood and gore everywhere. I shall attempt to put it back together again.

Poetry is not often read because it is seen as "difficult." This perception has everything to do with the highschool canon mentioned in the above post. While nearly everyone can get behind Beowulf to some extent (in a good translation), since it's basically an action movie, a lot of poetry is specifically designed to be... less accessible. I remember, for example, being forced to read some short poem by T.S. Eliot, I think it was. Out of the entire class, only two students could so much as sound the thing out, since that was the number that knew the Greek alphabet. Oddly enough, this snobbery is not welcomed by the general public. Since people are trained from early ages to think of poetry as snobbish, foreign, and rarefied, it will not become popular for the foreseeable future. Nor will it receive much more attention in academic circles (at least in English). For some reason, English is almost solely spoken and written in prose. Perhaps we like things more factual, more definite than other cultures, abstraction is often seen as weak mindedness, or more intelligent than God, neither of which is something which is likely to become popular. Academia, in this case, follows the world. Since prose makes bigger splashes and attracts more material than poetry, it follows that more people would study prose. But fear not. Poetry is not dead. I have a young friend who, I believe, when angry, recites poems form the T'eng Dynasty to calm herself.

Of course, those of you who know me well will remember that I like prose much more than poetry. And so does the majority of the Anglophone world. I wonder when that change came about. I mean, in the early 1600s, poetry was still at the top of the heap in England. Now, though, it's certainly not. Any thoughts?

Comments

[inuki42.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Prose and poetry both have their place, in my opinion, though I usually read prose. My English teacher this year remarked on it, actually - that when we were doing the fiction unit, I had trouble doing the analysis, but as soon as we started poetry I got much better at keeping it all together. I think that's because I see prose as something to read for entertainment - I read fiction for the story, not the literary devices. I focus on the big picture rather than the details, so it's difficult for me to do analysis, because I'm looking beyond the language. Poetry, though, I read for the words and language. I try to figure out how this word choice could bring that image to mind, and how if this word was different my mental image would be totally changed. Analyzing it's a lot easier.

What about song lyrics? Where do they fit? I suspect poetry's become "trendy" - it's fit itself to music. I mean, really - how many teenagers do you know who can recite five poems? How many can sing five songs? Admittedly some lyrics are more poetic than others - "The Real Slim Shady" is, in my opinion, less poetic than "Stairway to Heaven" - but almost all of them have some poetic aspect. If nothing else, the words are fit to music, so there's a definite meter and rhythm. Most rhyme, and often repeat phrases or lines. The subject may not be one that classical poets would expect to find in poetry, but lyrics are a product of our times. Some of them even include direct cultural references - "We Didn't Start the Fire," for instance. Just try and argue that that doesn't have any poetic merit! It's hard to recite the lyrics without falling into the rhythmic pattern of the song, because the stress patterns are tailored so well.

Yeah. Poetry's not dead, just transformed. It's as popular as it ever was because it bred with music to create a wild child.

[roseandsigil.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree with Amyr's point above about song lyrics. However, it also seems to me that, in general, poetry is harder for most people to read than prose as prose is, at least mostly, modeled after how people speak while poetry tends to be somewhat less so. The extra effort required to parse poetry may cause some people to dislike it.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm just thinking that in a reverse of the above, there have been songs that gradually became considered poetry. There's one on the tip of my tongue, but for some reason I can't get it out. Grarrgh. Maybe I'll remember it later.

[bursar42.livejournal.com]

I certainly agree with you about effort required to parse. This might also explain why certain authors are pretty well avoided by casual readers. However, those same authors are often extensively analyzed by academics, which sort of defeats the point of juniperjune's post. As for lyrics, one must also remember the large number of songs which are simply poems set to music. "Richard Corey" as performed by Simon and Garfunkel comes to mind.

[scintilla72.livejournal.com]

Somebody turned that poem into a song?

I remember reading that for junior year English and totally not getting it. Mostly because the ending comes suddenly and with no explanation whatsoever.

[inuki42.livejournal.com]

...Off topic completely, but.. I'm ramdomly amused to see icons I made on other people's journals. (Made = actually did the cropping and saved the icon-sized version, if nothing else.) Especially if I took the photo/drew the picture. That is all.

[sno4wy.livejournal.com]

Chipmunk, would you happen to know who droogcloot is?
He has me on his friends list, I have no clue who he is...

[bursar42.livejournal.com]

IM me if you want more information. He's Belle's friend from 02.2 and later. He's Max Gasner's little brother if that helps you at all. He was at one of Emma's reus. I don't really know much about him. A CTYer, though.

[juniperjune.livejournal.com]

okay, so eliot and pound were big snobs, it is true. however, i don't think that poetry's being more difficult makes it okay to ignore it. that's like saying we shouldn't do linear algebra because it's hard; we should just stick to good old regular high school algebra. i understand that you don't necessarily endorse this position and are merely arguing that "most people" feel this way, but i think that "most people" are intellectually lazy. what weirds me out is that ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS don't pay much attention to poetry; this is like MATH departments refusing to pay attention to difficult math. :/

[bursar42.livejournal.com]

But English departments can get away with it. Math departments can't. The reason for that is social demand. There is a demand for linear algebra, because, I'm not sure, but I think you actually need it for certain things. Poetry, like all art, is optional for a civilization's survival (I think you'll agree to this if we take "survival" in the literal sense). Therefore, less public demand will lead to less academic scrutiny. I addressed why I think there is less public demand.

"Horrible Impossible Possibilities"

[sternoquiaspero.livejournal.com]

I think it likely that poetry is dead today because much of what passes for poetry nowadays, as in most other arts noawadays, is just wind in sails, and even the average unlettered person knows it full well. Blame the art establishment, which has lashed out violently for the last several decades at anyone who dares to say that the emperor has no clothes. Indeed, in practically every art today, the entrenchment of the reactionary *avant-garde* -- reminiscent of Mao's "permanent revolution", eh? -- is extremely serious, and the situation is growing more acute by the year.

The focus of my own concern is music, and I think there is no cure for it without resorting to the dissolution of the classical music establishment as it is now. Oddly, musical civilization may well in the end get saved by a horde of less snobbish, middle-class versions of Charles Winchester from "M*A*S*H". Then again, it wouldn't be the first time that sort of thing happened to music. Of course, it might also come to pass that much more serious versions of Sondheim or Zappa will replace the preceding establishment, working from the ground up. Although, once again, it wouldn't be the first time for that sort of thing either.

Whatever it is, I can't wait; anything else would suck less than this. Although, to be fair, it's gotten a lot better than it used to be. People ranging from Steve Reich to Marc Adamo are busting a lot of the old, stupid restrictions and producing great things; it's in the nature of music, I suppose, that people can't get away with Cage-like masturbation for long. Unlike as with a painting, where you can hang it in a hallway in your house and get your pretension cred on even if it's a ghastly thing you'd never want to look at twice, it's a lot tougher to get away with foisting awful music on people, because their ears will rebel before long. So I suppose that things could be lots worse; but how long will music audiences continue to mutter things at performances like "Oh shit, it's something by somebody who's still ALIVE"?

[buzzruth.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who's being forced as I type to research John Donne and love poetry in the 1600s and can find nothing, I can plainly see why poetry is not as popular as prose.

Sorry if you wanted something intellectual, but I've reached the end of my tether with the whole intelectual thing today, and I'm ready to really hate poetry...