Jon Corelis asks about satire, & he may be right that there are few
examples of it in recent poetry, but I'm not sure there are none. Are none
of Gabe's poems in A Defence of Poetry satire? More carefully: is parody
satire? There are, as you say, Jon, lots of examples of that.
I wish I could write either, but I seem not to be able to, so all I can do
is enjoy others' such work, when I come across it. But there would be
attacks from both ends of the religio/politcal spectrum I'm sure, if the
people who live there read poetry.
Perhaps 'satire' has found a home elsewhere? In fiction sometimes. In some
rather awful, but wonderful, graphic novels or comix (I think at least
parts of Preacher, which does manage to offend just about everyone i think,
would fit).
As to unconscious parodies, well we've probabaly all fallen into that at
some point or other. If we're lucky we recognize it before we try to
publish that particular work.
One of the main problems is that the best satire has usually, historically,
come from conservatives. But today, most who call themselves so are already
so self-satirizing, there's little one can do against them, & a satire from
the left does run the risk of getting into the preaching to the converted
mode...
But given what I preceive as pretty strong poetry battles if not wars in
the US *as well as elsewhere) recently, I'm not sure that all reviews (or
at least readings) are just nicely positive...
Hmmnnn..
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
We deserve overtime
for dealing daily with these mistreated burdens.
Clark Coolidge
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