By Neal Whitman Poetry Prof.
Have you noticed? Getting Something Read poems are so… well they are so understandable. And accessible. And exciting. This is no accident. When I was a newcomer to the website, I was impressed by the “What We Are Not” statement:
We do not publish “whatever.” We do impose our own tastes and editorial preferences; however, we do try to recognize serious work that may not exactly fit with our preconceptions; we do try to encourage writers that may be just beginning to master their craft. Â
Then I began reading the poems here and concluded that the editors’ taste and preference was for poets who demonstrate that the art of poetry is the art of communication. What is not operative on this website is the question Miss Terry asked us juniors in her 4TH period advanced placement English class: “What do you think the poet is trying to say?” What! Did she mean that Robert Frost did not know what he was trying to say and needed us to explain it to him? Of course, I am not professing a belief that a poem should word for word, line by line, be clear as prose. I prefer poems that tell enough, but not too much. A little mystery is a good thing. To paraphrase Carl Sandburg, poetry worth reading explains Life swiftly fading without explanation into the horizon.
Now peruse a college catalogue and you might see a course on Contemporary Poetry abbreviated Contemp. Poetry. But, if the college registrar were to adhere to “truth in advertising” ethics, it should be listed as Contempt Poetry. The fact is much poetry today prizes obscurity over clarity and is not written for the Common Reader, people like you and me. Along the lines of The Godfather, the Poetry of the Academy makes you an offer you can’t understand.
Dare I issue a citation? Last year, the Academy of American Poets published a summary of their 2007 Poets Forum on Clarity and Obscurity in Poetry.? I got as far as the second paragraph and got stuck at this sentence: Difficulty, I would say, maps itself obediently to the contours of our interpreted world, hugs it like plastic wrap.? [Sven Bikerts. American Poet 22: 34, pp.19-21, 2008] Apparently, this sentence was so key to their discussion that the journal used it for a pull-quote repeated mid-page in blue. Huh? I dont get it. Do you?
Thank goodness for poets inside and outside academic institutions who do speak to and write for the Common Reader. Tony Barnstone, poet and professor at Whittier College, says that, in his experience, people are hungry for poetry| but the hothouse poetries of the academy are not written for them, and so they turn to forms that are more inviting, to spoken word, to rap, to haiku, and to the Fib. [Whats a Fib? Math plus poetry www.poetryfoundation.org] And, may I add? They go to short poems found here! So, thank goodness for GSR writers, editors, and staff. Common Readers can visit this site with no fear.
By the way, Tony Barnstone’s Whittier College athletic teams are The Poets. Really. That’s their mascot. I just went to their college bookstore website and ordered a ball cap with the logo: FEAR THE POET. Hmmm. Next month I will profess my belief that dictators should fear poets (and they do).
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree with you about clarity. But we who love poetry are like those who love the rain. We’re in the minority. Most people hate rain. They love a clear day. And sometimes it isn’t raining exactly, but sort of misting, or spitting, or sleeting, or the smell of the rain before the rain, which isn’t the rain itself, exactly. “Men die miserably everyday for lack of…” rain. Clearly, a little cloudiness, a little obscurity, can bode good things, too.
THIS is what I love about GSR and other online literary journals: not only do readers get the last word, a belief I profess in my poetry recitals, but they get it immediately. So, when I brought my first cup of coffee to my laptop, mindful that it is the first day of the month and my new “Poetry Prof” essay would be posted, I was gladdened to see two posted comments there.
Paul, yes! In the words of Eddie Rabbitt’s 70s pop hit, “I love a rainy night.” Immanuel Kant (truth in advertising I don’t “get” much of what he wrote) declined a professorship of poetry at the University of Berlin. Don’t know if he would have been much of a poet, but he did deliver in his treatise on aesthetics a wonderful gift for poets: the distinction between the sublime and the beautiful, as in the night is sublime, the day beautiful. I love poetry of the night. We poets are for the dark. So much poetical merit there and in the shadows, yes?
Kristina, yes! I love work. And, at times I like to work hard. Oh, the pleasure of its just rewards. Many times on the campaign trail (well, on the road, teaching medical professors how to become better teachers) I shared the Inverted U graph of learning (x axis) and stress (y axis) that visualizes a principle of education: we learn less when there is too little or too much stress. Too little stress? Boredom Too much stress? Frustration.
Hmmm… do my responses mean I took the last word. Apologies to both of you. Your private response or one more public one (yes, go on, post a comment on comment) are welcome.
Amicus poeticae,
Neal
“Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it.” (Diane Wakovsky, author of “Argonaut Rose”, cited on “The Writer’s Almanac” August 4, 2008). Let’s hear it for “art,” as in “ars poetica”. Some poets make me work hard to understand what they are “trying to say.” It is rarely a labor of love, lost. The process of discovery is thrilling and rewarding.
I dont agree that poetrys main function is to communicate. But I also dont think poets consciously try to disguise their meaning.
All the arts communicate, but I think thats their secondary function. Music, painting, poetry, are first of all a means of expression that is different in kind from language, or any system, that intends to communicate information. Because poets use language as their medium, people more naturally look for what they are trying to say.? But poets use language differently. They express themselves, usually in a pretty compressed way, through imagery, or color, or rhythm, or repetition, or other manipulation of sound. Occasionally, if the pieces come together successfully, a poem happens – the poet has expressed something, and sometimes that “something” is communicated to others.
And by the way, Paul’s orange pylon communicated to me very well.
Marina,
Ah, we look at it all quite differently. But, thank you for posting a comment and offering GSR visitors a different view. And, thank you for giving me the opportunity to reply. When I state that the purpose of poetry is to communicate I am not saying that it is a translation of prose into another language such as Latin or French. Poetry is its own Art, just as Prose is. And, so on for the visual arts (Painting, Photography, Sculpture etc. and for the performing arts (Music, Dance, Theater, etc. ). If literary, visual, and performing artists have nothing to communicate and to express to us with their chosen art form, then I have to ask, “What gets them out of bed in the morning?” Oh, well. That’s how I see it . No law against you seeing it otherwise. As for me, I revel in the many ways artists communicate. But, when they have nothing to “say” at least not to me… time to move on!
Amicus poeticae,
Neal
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
Emily Dickinson