Poetry dead. Long live poetry.
Get to work now.
Hal Z
"Most of our problems proceed from our inability to sit quietly in a small
room."
--Pascal
Halvard Johnson
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2009/6/5 Jon Corelis <[log in to unmask]>
> > http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/i-hate-poetry/
>
> This article, though I enjoyed it more than most on this subject,
> seems to me in parts disingenuous, expressing perplexity about things
> that are obvious to everyone (quotes from the article, URL above:)
>
> "I’m wondering why we hate poetry. I don’t mean people who don’t write
> it. I mean people who do. I hate poetry magazines by and large. You
> get two copies in the mail. One to archive and the other to read for a
> week and then to give away. Poems, fiction and a sad bit of art or
> two. It seems like poetry dies in such magazines. ..."
>
> I suspect that most people who bother to read such magazines at all
> first check the contributor's list to see if anyone they know is on
> it, and then turn to the reviews and letters where the real action is.
>
> "... Can’t we get our poems out some other way."
>
> Um, there's this thing called The Internet ...
>
> "In part I think the reason everyone wants to get a poem in the New
> Yorker is that people buy the magazine for other reasons and then they
> will stumble on your poem. They may or may not read it but they will
> see it...."
>
> No, the reason people want to get their poems in prestigious print
> journals like The New Yorker is that poetry is enmeshed in a
> personal/psychological and social/economic rewards system which is
> driven by the credentialing process which publication in such venues
> provides.
>
> "Magazines and journals are dying of course like birds at superfund
> sites. ..."
>
> But most of the prestigious poetry print venues continue with no real
> economic rationale, because they perform a function which is
> considered necessary by the humanities/academic establishment:
> stamping certain individuals as real poets ("a published poet!") and
> arranging them in a status hierarchy depending (number of poems) x
> (prestige of magazine or publishing house).
>
> "It upholds the cavalcade of nice. If poetry is nice then it is dead."
>
> In theory true, but the complication should be noted that poetry is
> allowed to be not-nice-at-all, provided it's being not-nice in one of
> the establishment-approved categories of rebellion.
>
> "The saddest job in America for instance is the poet laureate. The
> poet laureate of America. That’s like being Alfred E. Neuman."
>
> I have to admit that's pretty good.
>
> O where is our Zarathustra, to pronounce the death of poetry? Maybe
> then we could get to work.
>
> --
> ===============================================
>
> Jon Corelis http://jcorelis.googlepages.com/joncorelis
>
> ===============================================
>
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