Poetry holds a strange place in the American consciousness. On one hand, we encounter poetry every day, however we don't refer to it as such: greeting card verse, lyrics to music for example. But say the word "poetry" to anyone without an arts degree and its as if their ears slam shut, as if poetry were somehow too difficult. With the exception of perennial favorites like Maya Angelou, Robert Frost,and Kahlil Gibran, the general public limits its contemporary poetry consumption to poets such as Matty Stepanek.
This morning, the Library of Congress announced its selection of Donald Hall for the nextPoet Laureate.
Donald Hall is an interesting choice. His writing is both very simple and very thoughtful--absolutely gimmick-free. He creates worlds with potent economy. Here is "Gold", for example. Also, as the NYT describes it, he is an "outspoken" member of the advisory board of National Endowment for the Arts who works to preserve the NEA's grants for artists.
In the past the position of Poet Laureate was largely honorary, but in recent decades, the Poets Laureate have worked to make poetry more palatable and interesting to the general public. I am especially fond of Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project. Hall has said he doesn't quite know what his mission will be: "As for the rest of the job, 'I have a terrible miscellany of thoughts,' he said."
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
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4 comments:
bangs head against wall - I just don't get poetry. I read "Gold" expecting to be moved or to love it and I just went "eh" I am not as sophisticated as you my friend. I don't have the brain to appreciate it. (makes sad face)
I appreciate poetry, whether obscure or obvious. I did like the beginning of Gold, the first stanza. I was left wondering after I read the second stanza. "Two identical rooms"? I'll have to think about that one.
Mel
I've appreciated the current trend in the stances of the Poet Laureate to create more awareness, more of a voice for poetry. I hope that Donald Hall will use this position as a platform and pulpit for the arts, especially poetry.
I've often thought that the best poetry is the most economical -- using the fewest words to the greatest effect. "Gold" certainly is a prime example to use as such. I'm sure there are many ways to interpret this poem. I personally feel the little golden rooms made in each are a memory of that moment, identical in feeling and intensity of emtotion (a blissful moment) that the poet has ensured will live on longer than their lives.
I really should post more poetry to my own journal to share some of my favorite lines of meter and to share them with my friends and peers. (An afterthought for myself)
Like me do you worry about the demise of poetry? Will it only exist in the classroom and lose its potency as less and less people connect it with their daily lives?
I do worry about the demise of poetry, or, well, maybe "worry" is the wrong word. I think poetry has already been significantly devalued in American popular culture, and this makes me very sorry. It seems some of us sought out poetry as part of our literary self-education (I remember laying on my bed in 10th grade slogging through Dante's Inferno on my own!) because we understood there was something magical about poetry and we weren't being served that magic in school, and we certainly weren't experiencing it in popular culture.
I think other readers have only experienced poetry as part of a cold curriculum and were never taught to just listen to language, to experience the compact worlds poetry creates. Perhaps these people identify poetry with a form of art that you either "get" or "don't get" (this means you, Becky-love!) There is nothing to "get," any more than you can "get" a biography or a crossword puzzle. You either like it or you don't and you have to trust your instincts. Poetry is an event, an experience, not necessarily a whole world with a plot and characters. Sometimes those features are implied in poems, but the language is where poems begin and end, I think. Poetry makes us stop and listen to voices, and as a culture, we do not value that.
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