Is poetry dying yet again?

[romac1]

I orginally posted this to another thread as an aside, but I thought it might be worth a thread on its own.

Joseph Salemi's Why poetry is dying (http://www.n2hos.com/acm/cult122001.html)

v.

Philip Hobsbaum's counter-argument, Poetry dying? (http://www.star.ac.uk/darkhorse/currentissue.html) (you have to click on the pdf link - the third link down).

I know we've been over similar ground before, but I think these essays raise some interesting issues. I disagree with Salemi on the whole, but I thought his "eight rules of thumb for practicing poets" were quite funny and provocative:

1. Do not write any poem using the pronoun I, unless that I has a completely fictitious referent.
2. If your language is indistinguishable from common speech,give up poetry.
3. Rather than write directly about an emotion, reconfigure it in some imaginative manner.
4. If you write a poem and it sounds like a transcript of a therapy session, throw it away.
5. Do not write any poems about your grandchildren, your pet cat, or the natural beauty of the New England woods.
6. Avoid any declamatory, hieratic, or self-important tone that might infect your poem with Portentous Hush.
7. Write as much satirical, comic, and erotic verse as you can,and make sure that it is highly offensive to somebody.
8. Remember that, in a semi-literate world, your primary audience is yourself and your own personal criteria of excellence.

[Monk Bretton]

Joseph Salemi writes:

Throughout America there seems to be a widespread assumption that every poem ought to be written in the voice of Arnoldian high seriousness, and as if it were to be declaimed from a windswept cliff by some brooding genius.

To which we reply, in unison, Read More Poetry.

I think he should stick to playing the trombone (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Joseph%20Salemi). Or advising on plants (http://www.canadaone.com/ezine/expert/expert_qa.html?id=03Oct08_1).

[NemoSashimi]

I thought point 8 of these 'instructions' -

8. Remember that, in a semi-literate world, your primary audience is yourself and your own personal criteria of excellence.

- demonstrates how totally hypocritical Salemi is being. Hadn't he said before (to which we all agree) that poetry is not 'the out-pourings of the individual soul', as well as implicitly suggesting that there is such thing as an objectively 'good' poem, and that a good poem should be crafted in much the same way as a good symphony?

Oh well. He's trying hard, bless 'im.

[romac1]

This is the second essay I have read by Salemi. I think he is a snob, and I think he generalises too much. But nonetheless, I also think he makes some points that can't be argued away so easily.

Of course, he is deliberately trying to wind people up.

[David Mascellani]

Thanks, romac1, here are some links that I think you'll find interesting.

THE REPUBLIC - BOOK X - Plato (http://www.saliu.com/philosophy/Republic_X.html)


Defence of Poesie Sir Philip Sidney (Ponsonby, 1595) (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/defence.html)


To The Author Of The New England Courant-Benjamin Franklin (http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf1/sd7.htm)


Perhaps These Are Not Poetic Times -Brendan Bernhard (http://www.laweekly.com/archives/99b-index.php)


But What If These Are Poetic Times? (http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/aa111699.htm)


Poetry Is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care? -Bruce Wexler (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmnew/is_200305/ai_kepm308254)


Once Again Poetry Is Dead? - Victor Infante (http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/aa051303a.htm)


Death To The Death Of Poetry- Donald Hall (http://www.onlinepoetryclassroom.org/poems/Prose.cfm?prmID=2582)

10 Years On: Poetry Still Matters-JOHN PALATTELLA (http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i05/05b01301.htm)


Grassroots Effort Saves Poetry Reviews - Kevin Larimer (http://www.pw.org/mag/0411/newslarimer.htm)

David

[romac1]

Originally posted by David Mascellani
Thanks, romac1, here are some links that I think you'll find interesting.

People are always saying that art forms are dying, aren’t they?

Thanks to David for charting the history of poetry’s imminent “death” over the past few thousand years. It’s good to be reminded of that. Perspective is the word.

What intrigues me about this Salemi / Hobsbaum debate is the reasons Salemi gives for what he believes to be poetry’s final days. These are (to précis, an activity Salemi would no doubt despise!):

1. There is so much poetry written that it’s impossible to find the good stuff.

2. Lyric poetry dominates the contemporary scene to the detriment of other forms. To quote:

“We should remember that narrative, epic, satiric, devotional, comic, meditative, didactic, elegiac, epigrammatic, and erotic poetry are just as much a part of our European tradition, and they are in fact more interesting and compelling in aesthetic potential than lyric verse can ever hope to be. Quite frankly, the lyric is a limited form, confined mostly to three constantly reiterated subjects: love, death, and extremities of feeling. Contemporary poetry is starving on this restricted diet, and it's killing off its audience at the same time.”

3. Poetry is in the grip of the “Portentous Hush”, the idea that a poem must have some deep significance – “the real subject of such a poem is the celebration of its own heightened sensitivity.”

“It is the single most destructive and offputting characteristic of contemporary confessional lyrics. Besides being offensive, it is presumptuous and pompous. It turns a poem into a disguised sermon, whereby a reader is compelled to sit quietly and listen and absorb somebody else's emotional plangencies, as if they were a religiously sanctioned revelation. Portentous Hush adds a kind of pathetic moral earnestness to a poem that renders the piece not only unpleasant, but ultimately ridiculous. It is absolutely fatal to any humor, wit, or rhetorical brilliance.”

Now Hobsbaum counters each of these arguments, but I can’t help feeling that there is some truth in what Salemi says, even if he grossly overstates his case (e.g. even if what he says were true, it wouldn’t mean that poetry was dead or dying).

[Rik Roots]

Originally posted by romac1
[B]I orginally posted this to another thread as an aside, but I thought it might be worth a thread on its own.

Joseph Salemi's Why poetry is dying (http://www.n2hos.com/acm/cult122001.html)

v.

Philip Hobsbaum's counter-argument, Poetry dying? (http://www.star.ac.uk/darkhorse/currentissue.html) (you have to click on the pdf link - the third link down).

I read Mr Salemi's essay and - apart from a few quibbles at the margins - I found myself agreeing with the bulk of his arguments. If I were to write a "death of poetry" essay it would cover much of the same territory.

I then read Mr Hobsbaum's counter-argument and I have to say it sounds like the defence of someone in denial. Much of his essay sticks to the sidelines of the central debate, rarely addressing the key points being made by Mr Salemi. There's plenty of namechecking, and plenty of assertion that it must be Mr Salemi's lack of understanding (or ignorance) which means he cannot see the vibrancy of the modern poetry renaissance.

Well, if it means declaring to the world that I'm ignorant, then so be it. But nevertheless the vast bulk of the poetry being written (and published) today is boring. It fails to entertain or intrigue. It's self-referential and self-important. If I came across a gathering of poems declaiming their essence at the top of a cliff I'd push them over the edge.

But I don't think it's the particular fault of anyone. I prefer to think that this is the fashion of poetry today, and most people who write poetry are keen to be seen as fashionable thus setting up a classical spiral of decline. I say: let poetry die. I don't enjoy watching it suffer in its current state. From now on I shall confine myself to writing rikverse.

Let the flames begin ...

[Londongrey]

Salemi sounds like an idiot trying to sound important, another case of part knowledge being a destructive force.

I have noticed though that poetry is the only genre of art that does not seem to have had an Andy Warhol invasion, giving satyrical mass produced poetry about mass produced poetry!!!

Know of anyone who has done this?

Alex

[Dunc]

No one seems to think lyrics are poetry, whereas they may indeed have been the first poetry.

Or what about nursery rhymes or Dr Seuss? Practical verse like 30 days hath September? The limerick and the Rugby song?

It's only the 'serious' half of the spectrum that has shrunk in proportion, though even there I wonder if the absolute numbers are still highly respectable.

Obviously the Beatles songs are a better earner than the collected works of Heaney or Hughes, but I suspect the royalties on the latter aren't to be sneezed at.

Regards / Dunc

[NemoSashimi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd put forward Roger McGough as the poetic equivalent of Andy Warhol. Hilarious, and brilliant.

[Dunc]

Hilarious, and brilliant.

Well, often funny and good, anyway. Regards / Dunc