[New-Poetry] mo natterin' bout po no matterin'

[jfq at myuw.net]

On Mon, 4 Sep 2006, Chris Lott,
> If-- for the sake of discussion-- pop music is the primary vehicle for
> poetry today, isn't that pretty sad? I'm a fan of a lot of pop music,
> but as poetry? Not so much.

I look at that fact as the pretty obvious response to observations that there isn't much poetry in news papers and magazines any more. so what if all there is is poetry on the radio. granted a lot of it is really really bad. but so was most of the mostly lyric verse in the newspapers and magazines of yore. and there are always exceptions. take, for example, the magnetic fields, regina spektor, or beck and you'll see a great deal of lyrical sophistication in pop music that one would be hard pressed to find in, say, billy collins or glyn maxwell, to pick a couple of my favorite whipping posts. And I'd hold that robert smith of the cure, at his best-which granted is pretty rare these last fifteen years- or Tricky at his best whihc is a bit more common, are head and shoulders above dana mr "can poetry matter" himself gioia at his best.