NEA funds billion dollar poem

[blp]

http://www.theonion.com/content/news...t_for_the_arts

A disgraceful waste of tax dollars!

[JBI]

Typical Americanism, reducing everything to marketing. Poetry isn't about being the biggest, it is about being the most creative. You cannot buy that with American funding, and government power, and they won't be able to. They'll just end up with some mediocre sonnets by some known poet, praising Americanism, and its way of life. Lets be honest, the American poetry scene has been failing for about 15-20 years now, since every poet seems to sound like Wallace Stevens.

As for the question of pumping money into the arts, in theory it works, but not the way they do it. They use poets to create an American image, not to distort an American image, which is what they should be doing.

[blp]

JBI, while I strongly agree that the a lot of contemporary US poetry is utterly, tediously hidebound in its Stevens/Ashberyisms, I think you might want to take another look at the article, paying close attention to who's publishing it.

[JBI]

I understood it was satirical, I am merely commenting on the poetry scene of America, and how their funding is mis-placed, not uncalled for.

[blp]

Ah, OK. Yes, it's an interesting area this arts funding thing. I only posted the thing because I thought it was funny, but it does raise good questions.

I have a friend who's had a lot of arts funding and it definitely jump-started her art career. She strongly believes in state funding for the arts, claiming it's the only way of ensuring art is protected from commercialism. As a good social democrat, I ought to agree, but my visceral response is, ugh. Whatever the unspoken commercial criteria of the market, there seems to be a negative corollary of worthiness in state funded work that looks like the quickest possible route to insipidity. The oddest, least commercial works I can think of, things like Kathy Acker's novel Blood and Guts in Highschool, Francis Bacon's early paintings, David Lynch's Eraserhead, Andy Warhol's films, the works of Mike Kelly, Paul McCarthy etc. and, as they say, many many more, all, as far as I know done under the maker's own financial steam.

They use poets to create an American image, not to distort an American image, which is what they should be doing.

I tend to agree. Nicely put.

[Virgil]

I understood it was satirical, I am merely commenting on the poetry scene of America, and how their funding is mis-placed, not uncalled for.

It's not just satirical, it's a farce JBI. It's not true. Pretty funny blp.

As for the question of pumping money into the arts, in theory it works, but not the way they do it. They use poets to create an American image, not to distort an American image, which is what they should be doing.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Are you saying they are selecting poets that represent an American character? I'm not sure how one avoids that. I would tend to think that 95% of American poets sound American and have American themes. Anyway that's a perfectly good reason why the government should not be funding arts.

[JBI]

They mimicked their system off the British one, electing people, and supporting people that fit into their "poetic mold". What they should be doing is providing funds for smaller presses to publish regionally; not give money and publicity to already established poets. Look at the laureates - all pre-established poets, with already decent followings. Now, when we take into account that all these pre-established poets are getting all the publicity, we have a trend which aims to mimic such behavior amongst the beginning poets, and we end up with similar works.

The NEA has like 150million to play with a year - where is it going to? it must be going to the hip-hop artists, the fortune-cookie-hallmark-card-poets, and the third rate - not to the presses, and the small galleries, and places like that, which act as harvests for artistic work.

[blp]

It's not just satirical, it's a farce JBI. It's not true. Pretty funny blp.

Glad you enjoyed it, Virgil.