Cassie

Like you I come up with different answers to the question - what is the
first role of poetry - it varies from poem to poem and I don't think it can
be categorically pinned down, although it's possible to say what it isn't -
so, rather than try and answer that I'll say what I think are the most
important qualities.
I'll begin with a reservation - when I speak of poetry here, I am not
speaking of all poetry but of the best - I know that's a loaded word but I
want to indicate that I think there's a place for all sorts of verse - the
therapeutic qualities of some poetry has recently been referred to on the
list - likewise poetry that informs us of others' experiences - these are
valid ways of writing and fulfil an important role, as dopes the bush
ballad, for instance, or light humourous verse, but these are not what I'm
addressing.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd come back late to poetry ('O Late
have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new') and, attending poetry
readings after half a lifetime married to a rock musician and familiar with
those sorts of audiences and responses, I was dissatisfied with the general
politenenss, gentility, complacency even, of these events. Everyone was so
bloody sensitive it made me want to scream. (This is not to deny there was
some fine poetry being written but -) I think we often come to a sense of
what we want or value from an initial sense of what we don't and I
wanted/want a poetry that stirs people up, gets them thinking/ feeling/
responding/ participating in the creation of the poem instead of having it
all on the plate, as it were, and ready for easy consumption.
I value poetry that is truthful and inclusive, that uses anything and
everything but in a context of awareness of good and evil (again with the
loaded words). I want passion and intelligence but of the poem, rather than
the poet. It should all be happening in the poem. Craft is important (and of
course that's another loaded word) but ideally a poem should all the
resources of language within the context of a specific form. God (or
Bernstein) save us from those poems which are just cut up prose. A poem
should sing - sound, rhythm, the appearance on the page - use of space,
linebreaks, form itself, even rhyme (sometimes) - these should all be
working.
I guess most list members are familiar with the distinction between
signifier and signified and the attempt by many in the avant garde, esp.
language poets, to foreground the signifier, focussing on the materiality of
language. A significant and necessary moment in poetic history but with
inherent dangers.I think it was Roddy who referred to the 'busy surfaces' of
some language poetry and so, while I would assert the importance of
attending to the materiality of words, we must not forget their other
properties - meaning, of course, allusion, resonance, connotation, the
shades of other words - English is such a wonderful language in this respect
because of its messiness, its confusion, its readiness to absorb anything
useful it comes across.
I also think the poem should actively involve the reader but the writer must
first engage the reader - craft is part of the way but some committment to
meaningfulness/ truthfulness is also required. To quote Clayton Eshleman
quoting Gary Snyder -
"Gary Snyder once remarked that authentic poetic experience was contingent
upon the poet and the reader each going 50% of the way. Snyder's metaphor
for this process was poem as campfire, reader as out in the night woods. The
fire must extend its light - the reader must leave the woods and come to the
firelight's edge. At the point where they converge, art is active."
As always, there's so much more to be said. None of the above is definitive
but a beginning.

Geraldine
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