[New-Poetry] Yah, baby...

Tue Feb 20 10:05:46 EST 2007

Poetry, of all the arts, risks slipping into the realm of "pigeon raising"
and "basketry",

it may be seen as nothing more than some harmless hobby. If poetry wants to
be an art,

shoulder to shoulder with visual arts , theatre, music or even opera (what's
the

Met's annual budget?), it's got to do a little work. It's got to try.

I agree with you completely on this, and personally I roll my eyes when
people get all sentimental about how spiritually pure poverty is etc. etc.
(I remember Jack used to take the position that the best way to improve
poetry would be to take away all of the money and he would rail about how
many poets live in nice houses these days, but I think he overlooked the
fact that most of those "nice houses" were paid for by fall-time academic
salaries and spouses who worked as lawyers.)

So let me clarify how I feel:

No amount of money is going to turn poetry into a "commodity".  I think
poetry stands outside of that economy-- mainly because the hugely popular
audience that exists for, say, broadway musicals doesn't exist.  (BTW, I
don't think it can be compared to opera not only becasue the audience is
different, but because opera wouldn't exist at all without the kind of
massive budget the MET gets.  Its a high maitenance art!)  I think even if
you figured out which poet of our time has made the most money off of poetry
and divided it all up by how much time they put into working on their craft,
the numbers still aren't going to work out in a way that would satisfy
someone who is truly profit-minded.

I work in technology-- you want to meet people who are profit-minded?  I'll
show you people who know how to think about and are ruthless about those
numbers.  (And some of these same people love poetry and read Stevens and
Merrill with the same passion I do-- they aren't bad or shallow  people or
less about the things that aren;t about profit). Poetry just isn't going to
compete in this arena.  I have to wonder how anyone has come to expect it to
do so.

This for me is one of the things that makes poetry really important-- its
not a commodity.  For me it is a sanctuary where I can escape the
accountants and focus on something much more vital.  I value most the things
in my life that have no profit motive.  Stepchildren, pets, handknit
sweaters, gardens, poetry, keeping notebooks, writing letters, the book
arts....

So this is where essentially I agree with Joel when he points out the flaws
in thinking about how to make poetry more profitable or popular.  I would
also add that I think it is a forgone conclusion.  Poetry is only going to
be so popular no matter what you do.  I don't think it is wasted effort-- I
just don't think it is the "answer".

I don't have a problem with plastering poems in subways or on billboards--
though I think you would agree that this sort of publication is going to
work better for some poems than others.  I have no problem with that.  But I
guess what I really feel is that people who love poetry and who will
ultimately be its readers are going to find their way there anyway.  I am
less interested in putting money into big plans to make poetry more popular
and more interested in seeing small presses that go out on a limb and
publish challenging, top quality work survive.

Honestly, I think if poetry is seeing any kind of lag right now it might
because we are in a time of great change, especially in publishing, and
poetry is changing and expanding right along with everything else and as a
result is probably more decentralized than it has ever been. Some people
need to feel like there is one primary aesthetic touchstone (or big ego)
against which everything else is measured and worry deeply if it is not
there, but maybe what we are seeing is actually a needed paradigm shift.
Give it time.

I also get a little tired of the "Oooooh!  Poetry is dying!  Ooooohhh!  We
are seeing the end of the book!  Oooohhhhh!  Multi-media is killing
literacy!" crowd.  Please. I think a little mingling with the other arts and
a willingness to experiment in different media and try new things would do a
lot to energize literature, as would a willingness to recognize that poetry
has always had its performance side.  (This, by the way, has and would
probably continue to do a lot to expand the audience for poetry).

Okay, that's my blather for the morning!

Cheerful,

Suzanne

On 2/18/07, JforJames at aol.com <JforJames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>   Suzanne, even though I posted the link (reposted below) I just got
> around to
>
> reading this piece. It' s a little backhanded, I think. I understand the
> suspicion
>
> 'money mixed with poetry' engenders...they've been such estranged
> relatives
>
> for so long...but I feel that it's wrong to suggest that initiatives
> toward promoting
>
> the art of poetry, at large, among the general public, are all wrong.
> Certainly most
>
> of popularizing impulses will miss their marks badly, but poetry, or all
> the arts, has
>
> the least resources to spend on promoting itself. Every local symphony or
> art museum
>
> has a budget that would make a typical poetry promoter feel like a hip-hop
> mogul.
>
> Poetry, of all the arts, risks slipping into the realm of "pigeon raising"
> and "basketry",
>
> it may be seen as nothing more than some harmless hobby. If poetry wants
> to be an art,
>
> shoulder to shoulder with visual arts , theatre, music or even opera
> (what's the
>
> Met's annual budget?), it's got to do a little work. It's got to try.
>
>
>
> Writing down to an audience is going to do the job. Trying to clone Billy
> Collins and
>
> Mary Oliver won't work either. But every effort may, in some small way,
> reach
>
> a few of the 'half-inclined to pay attention'  to this sullen art & craft
> and to
>
> convert them into real fans. It's not stadia we need fill…but the
> difference between
>
> getting 5 people to attend a poetry reading and getting 50 into hte
> house is real
>
> quantum leap. Martial, the Roman poet, said it well when he said (rough
> paraphrase
>
> of the translated Latin) 'a poem that isn't read isn't a poem'. We can't
> be completely
>
> dismissive of doing a little to meet halfway the potential audience for
> our art. Putting
>
> a good poem in a subway train (or slot machine) or slipping a poetry
> anthology into a
>
> random hotel room (Jos. Brodsky's bright idea) nestled next to the
> Gideon's Bible,
>
>  are small efforts of guerilla marketing that I can get behind.  Much of
> what the Poetry
>
> Foundation is doing will be a complete belly flop. But sometimes, someone
> gets
>
> splashed by one of those flops, and is refreshed by the unexpected spray.
> Finnegan
> http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070219fa_fact_goodyear
> In a message dated 2/14/2007 10:15:58 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> queenmouse at gmail.com writes:
>
> Good article.  I particularly like the quote from my old classmate, Joel
> Brower.  Couldn't have said this better myself:
>
> Joel Brouwer, a poet reviewing a collection in the Times Book Review in
> December, wrote, "Contemporary poetry's great good fortune (despite contrary
> claims from certain hand-wringers mad to see poems affixed to every
> slot-machine, taxi stand and flowerpot in the land) is that it has no mass
> market, and so no call to pander."
>
> I have come to realize that of the things that makes poetry valuable to me
> is precisely that it *isn't* a commodity that can be harnessed up to make
> money.  It is therefore free to do a different kind of work.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>

-- 
"I will take the Ring to Mordor...though...I do not know the way."

Frodo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20070220/e0e04826/attachment.html