[New-Poetry] Against National Poetry Month

[David Graham]

Well, I'll venture one thought:  Bernstein's essay is very old news  
in several ways, starting with its copyright date:  1999.  But even  
if you missed it 8 years ago, you've read it all before.


========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
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On Apr 13, 2007, at 2:16 PM, Suzanne Burns wrote:

> Well, this is meaty:
>
> http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/044106.html
>
> Money quote:
>
> "National Poetry Month is about making poetry safe for readers by  
> promoting examples of the art form at its most bland and its most  
> morally "positive." The message is: Poetry is good for you. But,  
> unfortunately, promoting poetry as if it were an "easy listening"  
> station just reinforces the idea that poetry is culturally  
> irrelevant and has done a disservice not only to poetry deemed too  
> controversial or difficult to promote but also to the poetry it  
> puts forward in this way. "Accessibility" has become a kind of  
> Moral Imperative based on the condescending notion that readers are  
> intellectually challenged, and mustn't be presented with anything  
> but Safe Poetry. As if poetry will turn people off to poetry."
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Gleefully,
>
> Suzanne Burns
> _______________________________________________

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