These States of Poetry

Over on Poemshape, Patrick Gillespie has some interesting takes on the state of poetry. He’s a thoughtful guy, and the article he’s written is interesting, but I kept disagreeing with the piece. I want to sort out some of my reactions, and I thought it might be useful to share those reactions here.

His first concern is that you couldn’t stop someone on the street and get them to name a contemporary poet. He notes, via John Barr, that poetry is not part of any mainstream conversation. He also frets that About.com’s Top Picks doesn’t yield a Top Ten list for poetry (though a few of the top lists do include poets and poetry books).

He moves on to what prompted his ruminations: the recent death of Ruth Lilly, she of the drugs and poetry (a “you’ve got peanut butter in my chocolate” combination if I’ve ever heard one). He argues that her gift to the Poetry Foundation artificially revived a moribund enterprise and that—given its declining state—the better option would have been for her not to have given the money. He asks, rhetorically, that if poetry is so great a thing, why did it need the Lilly money to survive? He suggests that the Foundation, and the art of poetry itself, needed to die (if you will) so that others may live. He then laments Harriet Monroe’s original intent for Poetry, that poets could find an audience without being beholden to newspapers that demanded sentimentalized fluff. And it’s here that the argument lurches for a moment. It turns out that Gillespie wants a return to the marketplace that Monroe and her contemporaries saw at the time and were dismayed by. His contention is that market forces will make poets write for an audience composed of…It’s a little unclear. But they’d have an audience if they wrote well.

Right now, though, Gillespie says, the only audience for poetry is poets. In particular, poets in academic settings or who underwent academic training. So poets should be thrown out of the academy and made to face the mob rule of public opinion. He invokes Darwin by insisting that only the fittest would survive.

And right there is my deepest suspicion of the piece. Is the marketplace a Darwinian space? How does poetry evolve? How does survival of the fittest apply to art?

My first concern is that Gillespie uses “fittest” to mean “best.” That’s a problem with understanding Darwin and natural selection, but I’ll leave that aside. What’s hard to understand is how poetry is to attain any kind of fitness, or how an audience is to decide on best. My further concern is that the marketplace isn’t, in fact, a Darwinian space. Evolution, natural selection, these are blind processes. Better mousetraps, better poetry, larger supersizes, these are designed, and then the audience is manipulated—or at least the attempt is made. And sometimes a product survives, and sometimes it doesn’t. But does that survival express a fitness to a local niche? I have a hard time thinking that it does. And certainly not in the way that a finch beak evolves in reaction to the changes in food sources for the finch. On the other hand, the Poetry Foundation found a way to reproduce and continue.

He cites the great artists who have survived, but I think it’s important to note that we don’t know who we’ve lost. We almost lost Bach, for instance, and Van Gogh. Is Howard Finster a great artist? Henry Darger? But we can get into a long argument about canonicity and privilege that might be a dead-end for this discussion.

I worked for a while with Ted Kooser on the American Life in Poetry (paradoxically, a program funded in part by the Poetry Foundation) and got to drive Stephen Dunn and Billy Collins around for a reading in a different place and time. Kooser’s beloved here, and his ALP project can be found in hundreds of newspapers (and all over the Web). Dunn reads a bit like a poet of his generation: fascinating little essays framed by sharp detail. Collins played to a packed house and made the assembled teachers, students, and locals laugh as well as cry. Kooser, Dunn, and Collins all have academic backgrounds and have found an audience.

So I wonder. Is our culture too obsessed with the easily consumed? Fast food. Light beer. One of the commenters on Gillespie’s post noted that the UK has a very different relationship to poetry. It’s fair to wonder about a culture that doesn’t favor the meditative, the reflective, the contemplative. What kinds of pressures does a large, potential audience of that character put on its poets? Perhaps it drives them into academies.

From here, we get into a quickly twisting kaleidoscope of hypothetical scenarios. I want to assure Gillespie and others that poetry—even outside the academy—seems to be doing well. At least, if the number of books, presses, online spaces, slams, and zines is an indicator. Poetry might not be part of the larger cultural discussion, but I’m encouraged that highly placed politicians read poetry.

But I still can’t TiVo it.

 

Comments

[Patrick Gillespie]

Nice riposte.

//the better option would have been for her not to have given the money.//

I didn't actually write that. I *did* question whether the Poetry Foundation deserved to survive, but I don't believe I wrote that it should *not* have been given the money (and I think that's a legitimate distinction). It remains to be seen whether the foundation's influence is a good one - probably controversial at best. But then what institution, in the same position, wouldn't be? We'll see...

//His contention is that market forces will make poets write for an audience composed of…It’s a little unclear.//

The reader who is not a poet or an aficionado - the "general reader" as Frost called him. There were one or two respondents, at my own Blog, who identified themselves as such. They seemed to understand what I was referring to.

//How does survival of the fittest apply to art?//

That might be over broad. How does survival of the fittest apply to the choices of an individual artist? I think that's a fairer question.

//My first concern is that Gillespie uses “fittest” to mean “best.”//

That's a frequent concern, but I don't make that argument.

//He cites the great artists who have survived, but I think it’s important to note that we don’t know who we’ve lost.//

That's not quite what I did. I cited great artists who were famous "in their own day". This was in response to a reader who suggested there was no correlation between greatness and fame. The point you raise is somewhat different, having more to do with the legacy of artists and changing aesthetics.

//Collins played to a packed house and made the assembled teachers, students, and locals laugh as well as cry.//

Did you know that Collins received a six figure advance for his poetry? Collins managed that because he could communicate with a broader public. Problem is (and I just had this experience yesterday) not even an erstwhile fan could recall his name. Collin may turn out to be the kind of poet others point to, saying: "You see, the guy was a Longfellow, a crowd pleaser but shallow as a ditch. This is what happens when you win the public." That said, and during his 15 minutes, he appealed to a broader range of readers than any other poet of his generation. It *can* be done.

//I want to assure Gillespie and others that poetry—even outside the academy—seems to be doing well. At least, if the number of books, presses, online spaces, slams, and zines is an indicator. Poetry might not be part of the larger cultural discussion//

Thanks. : ) I never doubted it.

//but I’m encouraged that highly placed politicians read poetry.//

I wonder what Mark Sanford reads... Neruda?

[Timothy Lepczyk]

Interesting post. I was intrigued to read Patrick Gillespie's response.

[bo moore]

Hello: Iam both a writer and scientist (geology). If you are not a scientist, please don't drag Darwin/ natural selection or any other scientific discipline into a discussion on poetry. Like Quantum Theory, ideas in evolution are bastardized by the public, only adding to the widespread confusion as to what they may or may not mean.

Thank-you.

[Patrick Gillespie]

//Hello: I am both a writer and scientist (geology). If you are not a scientist, please don't drag Darwin/ natural selection or any other scientific discipline into a discussion on poetry.//

Says who? You?

Firstly, I never used the phrase "natural selection" (which is a scientific description). I used the phrase "Survival of the Fittest" which is *not* a scientific description but a metaphor first used, not by Darwin, but by the philosopher Herbert Spencer.

Metaphor is the province of poetry and the use of the term "survival of the fittest" (later adopted by Darwin *as* a metaphor) is an apt description for any number of models that have nothing to do with biological systems. It means something different than "natural selection". In fact, the phrase has been appropriated by scientists themselves for use in disciplines like cosmology where, for example, it serves as a possible model for the "evolution" of the universe itself.

Unfortunately it seems that you yourself are confused. Maybe geologists should stay out of poetry *and* evolution?

[James]

Bo,
I think you're a little off here. As Patrick points out, we're all using metaphors--some more apt than others. But I bristle with a bit more rancor when curtains get drawn around bodies of knowledge as if we're just not prepared for either nudity or death or, well, knowledge. I do a fair bit of study in the sciences, and I recognize the astonish breadth of my ignorance. However, it is incumbent on science and scientists to curtail bastardization and confusion.

What's intriguing about your post is something at the heart of my discussion with Patrick: the ability of a discipline or art to educate the broader public about what's interesting, useful, and important about what we do. I fear that trolling only serves to stab at that heart with a poisoned knife.

[bo moore]

What nonsense: I'm an artist / writer also. It is increasingly apparent that poets and other non-scientists like to "legitimize" supernatural ideas with scientific jargon. It's embarrassing, actually.