Is poetry trying to become irrelevant?

Sinderion

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Just curious. Maybe the title is more inflammatory than it needs to be.

For a year or two, to help my writing, I've been reading poetry from "Best loved poems of the American people." a bit most days.

For the past few weeks I've been looking around at currently produced poetry. Some from the poetry magazine and other stuff from books on amazon.

What struck me like a brick to the face, is that virtually all current poetry I've read screams at you to not care... it's self centered, about the person, you have to dig deep to get any meaning, and most importantly imo, you are given no desire to remember the poem.

Maybe people have just abandoned the idea of people, other than themselves or people deeply invested in poetry, valuing their poems as anything other than wisps of passing, dancing pointless words begging to be forgotten.(I actually own the book "Beautiful and pointless: A guide to modern poetry." I just got it, but wanted to ask this before I was indoctrinated into the official explanations lol.)

My objectivity is obviously compromised since I've been reading from a "best loved" collection... but I still haven't come across anything in current poetry that makes me want to say "Hey, I want to memorize this poem because I'll feel like a better person for knowing it." Whereas in that collection I have, there are many I feel that way about.

Even deeply meaningful poems like the ones the President likes, about social issues and such, just feel like they're crafted as much as possible to be forgotten and thrown away as you feel good about yourself for patronizing threatened art forms that's hard to give a damn about.

We're wired, even if we care deeply, to gloss over people talking about themselves. In a novel that's overcome with connection, with depth. The problem is anything deep in these poems I'm reading ripples so gently in impossibly light-weight verse it's hard to even recognize meaning or tension on the fourth or fifth read through. By then you've probably gone on to other poems looking for actual meaning... or at least continuing your ride atop their verse, meant to be discarded the moment it's read. I'm probably automatically a heretic for asking this question, but is rhyme a four letter word now even though it has five? Or is popularity with common people scorned? I thought that guys trick with the raven was pretty great, a common man's poem from the ground up.

I don't know, maybe if there's something that feels catchy about it, a contemporary poet makes a song out of the verse instead... All we're seeing is the pretty but effectively pointless stuff.

I just see a place for poetry right now. Something a little bigger than a soundbite, but smaller than a news article or blog post and far more memorable. Like a meme but text only, bigger than ascii art but more appealing to the grey matter than another self improvement quote. Right now poetry seems more like masterwork pencil drawings commissioned to adorn the back of throw away 1-day buss passes.

TL;DR: All the contemporary poetry I can find supports the idea that poetry is an art form that wants to die. It's pretty but quickly consumed and easily forgotten. I would *love* to be proven wrong. I'm talking about consumption by regular people, i.e. the people who used to care the most about a well turned verse.
 
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veinglory

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What poetry are you reading? From this I will guess literary journal poetry? That is one small niche. I read literary but also feminist/social justice poetry, sci fi poetry, some self-pub collections etc. I think its a pretty health form overall.
 

Kylabelle

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Sinderion, great post. You might want to dip into this thread where we knocked that question around a lot recently.

:)
 

poetinahat

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I get the same feeling sometimes: poems so often seem to be about doing something for the poet, rather than the audience. Personal catharsis, spilling emotions, Being a Poet: things that are of no interest to anyone else. Not anything that interests or lasts.

At the same time, it seems that many don't bother with craft, suggesting it's enough to Feel Something and dump it on a page, throw in a few line breaks, and voilà: poem. I wonder whether most of us began that way.

It's not poetry I like to read. But the thing is that people are writing it, I think. If anyone can write, and ideally read poetry, rather than just leaving it to the academics and the beatniks, then it must be alive. Maybe it's that there are so many ways to get a poem viewed, and to find them. We see all the stars, not just the brightest ones.
 
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Agent Cooper

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To me it isn't pointless. It helps grow the heart and sharpen the eye. Reading poetry has realy helped me open up to life.

Poetry also has the power of metaphor and simile that is unique to the medium. My aestethic view of poetry is of metaphor and simile producing pictures of knowing and sensing. And as they say a picture says more than a thousand words. That kind of poetry is realy wordless and as powerful as anything you could see on the screen. Neither painting nor film has the power of simile.

A poem I realy would like to memorize is Tranströmers Schubertiania. One of a few poems that actualy makes me cry. Some of Nerudas work does the same thing for me.
 
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Kylabelle

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I have often had that experience, though, of exercising my love of poetry, reading some really great stuff that just sticks to my ribs and makes my brain glow, and I get hungry for more and go hunting and find






paper.

is what it feels like.

I have felt this way at poetry readings too, where I really wanted to support the poet, the reading, the whole thing of readings, I wanted badly to like it and just. could. not. and wondered why that person got up there to hold a blank face and monotone through such odd verbiage....

I still don't know reliably how to find really tasty yummy satisfying poems. One of the things I appreciate more and more about AW is that pretty much any day of the week I can dip into the poetry crit area and have my breath taken away by somebody's latest piece.

so I guess I do know how to find it, now.

:D
 

Sinderion

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I looked for a similar thread in this forum, but didn't see one recently, thanks for the link :D I was a bit embarrassed after I made this post honestly lol. I didn't let myself come back here for days, until I cared less about what I'd said, like getting distance from a first draft. This is the sort of stuff I was hoping for :D I looked into that other thread, good stuff, sounds like par for the course, questioning poetry's purpose.

Read Ed Romond's Dream Teaching. You will feel better.

I did, and you're right lol. If I were a teacher and liked the job, I would probably have that hung up somewhere I looked everyday.


To me it isn't pointless. It helps grow the heart and sharpen the eye. Reading poetry has realy helped me open up to life.

Poetry also has the power of metaphor and simile that is unique to the medium. My aestethic view of poetry is of metaphor and simile producing pictures of knowing and sensing. And as they say a picture says more than a thousand words. That kind of poetry is realy wordless and as powerful as anything you could see on the screen. Neither painting nor film has the power of simile.

A poem I realy would like to memorize is Tranströmers Schubertiania. One of a few poems that actualy makes me cry. Some of Nerudas work does the same thing for me.

There's nothing wrong with the 100% personal part of poetry. I hope and expect it will always exist. Even in a world of write the book/song with the widest potential audience, there are plenty of personal/less economics driven books/songs out there. There's just no getting around how you have to care a lot to dig all the way into the metaphor, and even surface messages of some poems though. If they're really dense, but screaming at you to move along, the poet has to decide which is more important. Usually the decision seems to be that it's okay if the reader doesn't care.

I have two friends, one that's self-published on amazon and one that writes on a blog often, that have that sort of... vaguely beautiful, but not really crafted poetry. It helps them through their lives, so it's fulfilled it's purpose and more. Who cares if anyone reads it? They don't.

I think maybe I'll look for things in that Ed Romond style. It looks like it has the potential to be what I'm interested in. Though I would like to be able to fit as much in far less space. Still that tongue dancing, play with syllables and sounds style the way good dialogue dances with ideas, subtext and characterization. It seems to combine what I study most days in my old poetry collection with the modern mastery of word flow. Good times.

Thanks for the sympathetic replies!
 

Fruitbat

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I think it's just easier to write bad poems than bad stories or novels. Less words, yanno. :p And of course don't we all start out as not so great at whatever we write. A much smaller number put in all the time and effort to improve enough that others really want to read their writing. I'm not so sure poetry centered on the self is necessarily bad though. I mean, look at novels, for example. Some are deep and have a big message but the light escape ones have a place too, imo. So some of what's good or not is just personal preference, too. I don't tend to like poetry too much, with some exceptions. I think I'm just too dense in that way and often don't understand what they're talking about when they don't state it outright.
 
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JustSarah

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But what defines bad in poetry? Some like rhyme, some not. Or is it the infodumpy "here is my childhood and a bag of chips?"

I'd have to understand the individuals taste first. I view poetry as coming to terms with my life. Though that's why I don't publish it in journals.
 

William Haskins

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But what defines bad in poetry?

It sags like the tits
of a suckled-out sow
and rolls off the
tongue like mud.

It creaks like the cracks
of a moldering bough
and clumps at the
edge like blood.

Like flotsam it floats
in the wake of the word
riven apart
by a flood,

And thrown in the air
like a dumb flightless bird
crashes to earth
with a thud.
 

CassandraW

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But what defines bad in poetry? Some like rhyme, some not. Or is it the infodumpy "here is my childhood and a bag of chips?"

I think William's verse does a very nice job discussing it poetically. :D

Putting it in prose, I find it easier to define "good" poetry and then contrast bad poetry.

For me, a good poem takes an idea and crystallizes it. Every word is carefully and deliberately chosen to work towards the poet's vision. Not a single word is dispensable; if you take one out or change it, the poem suffers. Everything about it -- the words, format, spacing, punctuation, rhythm, sound, the rhyme or lack thereof -- has been considered and considered again. It doesn't just snatch a tired cliche off a shelf -- it creates a new way of looking at something familiar via fresh images, metaphors, or other poetic devices.

And if you take the trouble to follow a line, stanza, or the poem down to its essence, you should get additional gifts of meaning. One read should bring you a picture. A second, third, and fourth reading should bring you additional nuance, if you care to take the trouble. You might find yourself thinking -- "that word there, he should have used something else" -- but then when you ponder it over, you can't think what. And occasionally you might find yourself saying "what the hell is he trying to do with that" -- but the reason comes to you later in the bathtub.

IMO, good poetry is much harder to write than good prose.

Bad poetry is filled with carelessly chosen words. They might convey a surface meaning, but the poet hasn't troubled to seek the perfect ones that might contain additional shades of nuance. Or they're wedged in primarily to fit a rhyme scheme or pattern. (This is not to say that rhyming or formatted poetry can't be good -- it can be excellent. But the words have to do more than rhyme -- much more.) Or they're simply blurted out on the page -- prose broken up into stanza form -- without images, metaphors, or other poetic elements to create additional meaning and beauty. Bad poetry tells, not shows. It uses shop-worn cliches instead of fresh new metaphors and images.

Whereas repeat readings of good poetry will bring you additional shades of nuance and meaning, with bad poetry, one reading suffices. A second reading won't bring you anything new. There's nothing to dig into beyond what's laid out on the surface.

Bad poetry is alive and well, by the way -- it's in practically every smarmy greeting card on the drugstore shelf. I'd venture to guess it pays better than good poetry.


ETA:

Every once in a while, I've had a line flutter out of my brain and stay unchanged in my poem through every edit. But it's not through lack of consideration. It's because, after turning the line over every which way, shaking it out, looking underneath it, and considering alternatives, I can't think of a better way to put what I want to say. Call it inspiration or just getting lucky -- it's wonderful, but I find it rarely happens. If your entire poem plopped out of you in a steaming heap, it's probably not inspiration.
 
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PoeticRendezvous

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I know this is an old post but it is an interesting concept. Poetry becoming irrelevant? Never. I guess I am the type of person that doesn't measure what makes a poem worth something to someone else. The clearest example of this is when my friend wrote poetry and left it for her family in drawers and different places throughout the house before she died of cancer. Thing is, she wasn't a writer or a poet but that would not matter to her family, they are probably the most prized works of poetry on Earth. If a poem stays with someone, it is a blessed union between poem and reader. Some of the greatest poems I've read would not get published in books and perhaps not have many likes on forums. Why were they so great? Because they accompanied me to places other poems could not.
 

Xelebes

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There are broad genres I don't care for. There are styles I don't care for. There are genres and styles I do care for so I read them and find value in them.
 

larissahinton

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I write poetry to share my observations of the world. To connect. Not to just unwind and dump my emotions in a box or on paper. But to share and to hopefully to connect to other people what is going on around me.

There are times though that I do need an emotion dump, words on paper, and sometimes it's just as simple as that. But I don't share those poems. There are personal and they only mean something important to me, to remind me of where I was and how I came out of that dark abyss. So I just think it depends on the poet and what they feel like sharing.
 

CassandraW

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The fact that a poem deals with one's own emotions and experience does not necessarily mean that it is a sloppy emo dump.

We are all human. We all feel joy, pain, sorrow, anger, etc. A good poem about an individual emotion or experience taps into that universality. The reader sees through the poet's eyes and feels the poet's emotion/experience.
 
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Just curious. Maybe the title is more inflammatory than it needs to be.

For a year or two, to help my writing, I've been reading poetry from "Best loved poems of the American people." a bit most days.

For the past few weeks I've been looking around at currently produced poetry. Some from the poetry magazine and other stuff from books on amazon.

What struck me like a brick to the face, is that virtually all current poetry I've read screams at you to not care... it's self centered, about the person, you have to dig deep to get any meaning, and most importantly imo, you are given no desire to remember the poem.


A lot of the poetry I see is what I call esoteric, and not in a good way. It is written for the poet, not the reader. I've even seen it pointed out to the poet that the meaning is unclear, and that's okay with him/her, that everything has to be understood.

As far as I'm concerned, poetry that is not comprehensible to an intelligent reader is just journalling,

And some of the weird approaches to free verse are not helpful.

Btw, I am not prepared to argue or defend these points - that is, too often, a thankless and even torturous task with needless drama attached.
 

William Haskins

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Btw, I am not prepared to argue or defend these points - that is, too often, a thankless and even torturous task with needless drama attached.

i read that first as "knee-less drama' and i thought, "what a shaky-legged play that would be."

inscrutability, poor command of language, weak delivery... none of these are the sole province of the free-verser. plenty of formalists write/wrote badly, with their head up their own ass, or both.

i'm not sure your points could really be argued or defended anyway. they're kinda just opinions based on confirmation bias.
 

Kylabelle

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Mmm. There's a big difference, too, between being egoistically obtuse and thinking oneself above the reader in sophistication, which is a game for the very naive, and the poetic skill of playing the edge between what can be rationally explicated and what can only be implied, hinted at, pointed to. That latter is a high skill, but it could conceiveably appear to be simply obstructionism if the reader doesn't have the patience of a little contemplation.

Sometimes it's wonderful to meet the poet halfway, so to speak. But if you are insisting on instant linear transparency of meaning, you would miss those particular opportunities.
 

Ken

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For me Eliot's Wasteland is unintelligible for the most part. The fault is mine. I'm not swift enough to grasp his meaning and that goes for a lot of poets. That still doesn't prevent me from appreciating their talent and applauding what they do. And I still do get value out of reading their poetry. The spirit of their stuff comes across and that alone is awesome. That's just me of course. My own limited perspective. Take it or, best, leave it ;-)
 

kuwisdelu

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I know there are parts of my poetry that are probably inscrutable to non-Native Americans, and other parts still that are probably inscrutable to non-Zunis.

I'm okay with that.