> 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.
--
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Jon Corelis http://jcorelis.googlepages.com/joncorelis
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