Poetry is in imminent and dangerous decline. It floats ominously in
the sky with the word Hindenburg stamped into its side. It is dying,
dead, zombied, and decapitated. It is a joke that isn’t funny
anymore, a jacket without its buttons, a metaphor that is badly
formed.
Or so I’ve read. Recently these
collective anxieties have tended to gather into similarly titled
essays: Why I Hate Poetry (the magazine), Why I Hate Poetry (the
general state of), Why I Hate John Barr (or Dana Gioia), Why Dana
Gioia (or John Barr) Hates Poetry (either the magazine or the state
of).
These essays somehow
attempt a salvation of poetry by reinforcing the significance of
prose. Clearly, poets should not be obsessing poems, but the
structure of this artful commentary.
The Anatomy of the Essay
The Logic. There is a problem with poetry: therefore, prose is
written. This solution seems inelegant at best. At worst it is
apocryphal, a suggestion that poetry cannot defend itself.
The Metaphor. Mostly
written by poets, these essays tend to ply rather striking
metaphors. This seems like a macabre innovation, like writing a
scathing review of Michaelangelo’s David in neatly chipped marble.
The Quotes. As in any
good essay, the great poets of history are often called in to
sprinkle their brilliance. This inclusion implies reverence;
however, the quote is rarely actual poetry, just poets talking about
their work. Taken in a larger context, these quotes often feel like
name dropping and seem bizarrely misplaced. As Ossip Mandelstam once
said, “Only in Russia is poetry respected—It gets people killed.”
The Mimicry. The literary
critics have tarted up Commentary and the novelists have snuck her
into the ball. They make her go by the name Heteroglossia or
Meta-narrative, but we all know what she is. Writing about writing
is not all there is. We also have this thing called poetry.
The Programs. The
argument here is that poet->teacher->poet dynamic creates a small
singular sort of audience. Poetry is then subjected to all of the
dangers of incest while falling short of the fun of sodomy. All
this, while ignoring a poet’s natural self-loathing and misanthropy.
A poet gives birth to nothing but himself, and the occasional book
of poetry.
The Music. Finally, these
essays conclude with an often tedious comparison to the other arts.
These juxtapositions can include a wide range of villains,
everything from painting to clog dancing. However it is usually
music, in the role of the great lyric thief, that ends up being the
mark. Still, these comparisons are often done with a curious
reverence, as though the writer is proud that he knows someone who
owns a guitar.
My friend gently strums his goose-necked Les Paul as he recalls a
great piece of music writing. The jazz recording in question was in
every respect against the reviewer’s taste, but still the write-up
glowed. The conclusion was that school, movement, or style mean
nothing if the guy can just play. It is this intangible that
separates jazz from noise, art from pornography, beauty from
crudeness—that separates poetry from everything else.
I am not suggesting that
the poet should turn xenophobe, insisting on a more stubborn and
new-er criticism. I am not saying that the
rotund backside of Poetry Magazine isn’t a bit sexy. I am merely
saying that true poetry is an intricate beauty, and the only way
that it will see any decline is if it is never written.
The virtuoso can just play; a well-wrought poem just sings. And it
can, well enough to save anything. Unless we would prefer to be Emersons to some future Whitman. Unless we think we can dance the
rain into existence. Unless we think we can talk ourselves out of a
coma. Unless we think that artful hypocrisy can somehow end in
poetry. Think of Stephen Dunn
washing his clean laundry at the Laundromat
because he wants to write a poem
about the Laundromat.
Think about yourself
thinking about Stephen Dunn.
The excerpt of poetry is from Beth Ann Fennelly’s
Tender Hooks.
The accompanying prose is by Jacob Shores-Argüello.