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

[jfq at myuw.net]

I certainly don't think that pop lyrics are the future of poetry. I just want to point out that they ARE poetry and are consumed by the masses, as a counter to the complaint that "the masses don't care about poetry any more." There are some great pop lyricists out there, and a lot of them have been mentioned lately, but the pop lyric form has different requirements than does poetry written to be read, just as slam poetry has different requirements and most of it taken without the performance element is largely pretty limp. Which is to say, just because there is poetry everywhere, it doesn't follow that there is GOOD poetry everywhere.


On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Chris Lott wrote:

> re: Spektor as poet (ju st to choose an example)....
>
> I'm just not seeing it. She is more lyrically sophisticated than many
> other pop artists, but bereft of the music I don't see much
> particularly good poetry there. Which isn't surprising-- it's akin to
> saying "without all those nouns and verbs, his writing isn't
> particularly strong."
>
> I'm glad there are sophisticated pop lyricists (like I said, I listen
> to a lot of pop :) but their emphasis is-- rightly-- not on the words
> and the product shows it. If that were the future of poetry, I think
> it'd be pretty sad because a lot of fthe potential power would be
> permanently lost.
>
> c
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