On Modern Poetry

     I have been writing, reading, and reading about poetry for almost four years. I believe that the powers that be today in our poetry world and many poets in that world are snobbish and elitist. The standard of “good” poetry today has been fabricated of elements that make merely understanding a poem a struggle for an average reader. My suggestion that poets might consider widening the appeal of their work frequently is met with a question that demeans the average reader and demonstrates the elitist attitudes of many poets, “So, you want me to dumb it down?”     

     Before continuing to read this rant, go to any on-line bookseller’s site and do three searches: 1) understanding novels, 2) understanding short stories 3) understanding poetry. If you actually do this you will find that virtually nothing exists in the first two searches, but what about the third?     

     The Modern Era of poetry (1901-1045) was a time when poets decided to break from traditional poetry to experiment and be innovative. Free or open form poems became popular because they were not as restrictive as rhyming and metered poems.     

     The Post Modern Era (1945-1989) continued with this experimentation, but the content became more ironic and confrontational. The beat poets emerged and experimentation flourished.      In the current Global Era there is a mix of ethnicities, forms and rapidly shifting images affected by electronic media, the instant society.

     Through it all, the quest for originality and the infusion of Symbolism has moved the art form far away from the common reader. The vast public only experiences poetry today in popular song lyrics and greeting cards.

     (The Poetry Foundation did a survey of readers in this country and the statistics should be alarming to the striving poet. You can look it up on their web site. You will find that only about 14% of the public read on a regular basis and a very small portion of those readers read poetry. Why? Ask your non-poetry reading friends.)

     Symbolism was a movement that began during the Victorian Period primarily in France. Charles Baudelaire was it’s founder and Arthur Rimbaud, Stephane Mallarme, Paul Verlaine, and Paul Valery forming a group that almost created a completely symbolic world. They were trying to evoke states of feeling or awareness, often without discernable, concrete meanings. Suggesting things without stating them directly.

     This use of symbols is referred to as private symbols because it leaves two parts of symbolic patterns out and open for the reader’s interpretation. (Hour-glass sand = passage of time = aging or wedding ring = marriage = love and commitment) Symbolism leaves out the last two parts and the reader has to either determine what the author meant or provide their own association. Think of what a recent divorced person or someone in a gay relationship might conjure up when they read about a wedding ring.

     Now let’s throw into the mix the fact that originality is highly desired today, new images, new symbols, new metaphors, new similes, new, new, new. One of the worse things a poet can hear at a critique today is that their poem or any part of it is cliché. We must be new and original.

     Unfortunately, with this quest for originality rhymed and metered poetry is no longer respected. (Try to get some published.) Traditional forms are seldom used and even the old standard Sonnet is often bastardized in search of originality.

     What I have found as I interact with other poets is that many can’t handle rhyme or meter. Strictly structured poems like Ballads, Sestinas, Villanelles, and Rondeaus are way beyond anything they wish to attempt. Yet they will say that the forms are too restrictive to allow them to express freely.

     I fell like the little boy who speaks up in the crowd and tells the emperor he is naked. All the poets around me are interpreting poems and talking about how beautiful they are. They say, “poems don’t have to mean, they just have to be.” They say, “don’t ask a poet what their poem means, tell them.” I have a friend who wants me to at least agree with him that a poem doesn’t have to have intent.

     Poems are usually short and sweet, perfect for our generation of the five-second sound bite. Yet, how many people buy poetry books? How many major publishers publish poetry? Are you satisfied that your greatest possible audience is a small portion of the 14% of Americans who read on a regular basis?

This entry was posted on December 7, 2007 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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