How Important is Contemporary Poetry?

[shortstoryfan]

For those of you who write your own poetry, do you think it's important that you read contemporary poetry, or do you find that you simply need to read the "classics"? I'm talking about extremely new poetry, written in the last 20 years.

[stlukesguild]

Well... I don't write poetry... at least nothing that I would admit to having penned... but I am an artist/painter. I largely agree with John Barth's assertion that "being of one's time" may be the least important aspect of one's art... but it is also essential.:shocked: I think that it is essential for the artist to gain a strong grasp of what has gone before. Art is as much a dialog with art as it is with art. It is perhaps most essential for the younger artist to be aware of the art of the immediate past whether he or she will ultimately build upon this or rebel against it. The best artists/poets/composers throughout history have been well aware of the achievements of their predecessors and of what was occurring in their art of choice at the given moment.

[Virgil]

Absolutely important. If you only read Shakespeare, would you be writing in Shakespeare's language and forms? No. Centuries have passed and it's important to know (but not necessarily emulate) current trends.

[Delta40]

I think it is important, although I am not an active reader of poetry (excluding Lit-netters) on the times I have picked up a book, I am surprised by how easily I am influenced. I think we should consider classical and contemporary in a balanced way

[shortstoryfan]

Well, I've been reading D.A. Powell, and some critics have said he his poetry has a kind of formalism, although his poems are kind of considered experimental. I know he has poems that are influenced by older works...like one called "come live with me and be my love", but I don't know. I read an article where he said he wasn't well read, but he seems so smart...I don't know. I'm just rambling. Thinking out loud.

[Alexander III]

I think Schiller line applies well here

"Live with your century but do not be its creature"

[blazeofglory]

I think familiarization with contemporary poetry is paramount, however what is more paramount is reading the classics additionally. There are so many poets here and who lack craftsmanship. I find them shallow and unmoving. These poems are bubbles and leave no marks in the sands of time because there is no gravity in those poems.

I love poetry if it is carefully written. To be a good poet one must read profoundly and here most poet, I apologize if I sound hostile but this is the fact I must write sooner or later, write trash, not poetry.

Writing poetry is a fad for many; and some writers here write because they are wowed or praised immensely but undeservedly.

I do not mean there are no good poets at all. They are few, maybe one or two. The majority write garbage. Immature and childish in substance

[Alexander III]

I somewhat agree with you blaze but what you seem to forget is that most of the people who post their poems here are beginners trying to learn their craft, at which point we cannot blame them for writing bad poetry, I mean, Don Juan is one of my favorite poems, and I love Shelley's poetry as well but Byron's Hours of Idleness and Shelley's first books of poems are both dreadful at worst and merle tolerable at best. Perfection takes practice.

[shortstoryfan]

This may be going too far for this post, but what is craftmanship?

I feel like classic poetry has these elements, like rhyme and meter, that they adhere to, that contemporary free verse doesn't, and so there is a sense that there is no "craft" in contemporary verse.

But I also get the sense that it is also about the poem's "argument", which contemporary poems certainly have, but when I'm writing I never seem to think about the "argument" of a poem. At least, not actively. At workshop once, there was a woman who wrote a poem that switched tenses in the middle, and it was apparently a large feature of the poem. But it was hardly noticeable, and honestly, the material and imagery of the poem were rather bland to me otherwise. But she had paid attention to this one detail.

I also kind of wonder about "craft" being something modernist. Kind of like...you make a pattern all your own, and somehow stick to it. This kind of poem seems based on structures, patterns, repitition, form...but not traditional poetic forms. They seem less about content and more about...the box you put the content in.

I don't understand the most experimental poets. People like...G.C. Waldrep, Dean Young, etc. but I find them so fascinating.

[kelby_lake]

I'm not that keen on modern poetry- a lot of it gives people the false idea that you could just knock one of those off in a few minutes. Same with modern art- it becomes less about technical ability and more about simply deciding that what you have to say is somehow important. Occasionally it is, but often it isn't.

[blazeofglory]

I somewhat agree with you blaze but what you seem to forget is that most of the people who post their poems here are beginners trying to learn their craft, at which point we cannot blame them for writing bad poetry, I mean, Don Juan is one of my favorite poems, and I love Shelley's poetry as well but Byron's Hours of Idleness and Shelley's first books of poems are both dreadful at worst and merle tolerable at best. Perfection takes practice.

I must agree with you. You are right in your expression that we all are learning! I am learning in my prose too, yet I am writing essays though I am far from perfection

[JBI]

To be honest, there really isn't contemporary poetry, just poetry. It's continuous, not something that comes in steps.

[Jassy Melson]

I disagree. There is contemporary poetry. It is poetry composed in our time.

[blazeofglory]

This is in fact a different topic as to what is contemporary and what is not. As generally understood contemporaneousness in poetry stands for writing in tune with the fad current in the days of the poet and nothing else. By this metric all that mirrors today's problems is contemporary

[shortstoryfan]

@ kelby lake

If that were true, and this type of art didn't take talent, than why wouldn't more people who are already writing start composing those easy poems that take no skill and win awards and fellowships, etc? Sure you can't make too much money off of poems, but they can help make a reputation for teaching...which can lead to lots of grant monies and awards, potentially. Do you think that the literary "establishment" just acts like the poetry written today that wins awards is good, when it is in fact garbage?

@ JBI

I suppose I get what you are saying. Progression and response? What am I saying? I never get what you are saying. But I guess things aren't cookie cutter and easily separated. Art is blurred? I don't know.

@ blazeofglory

So you are saying that anything contemporary is just a fad? Or are you saying that contemporary work tries to emulate the trends found in poetry written around the same time?

[stlukesguild]

As generally understood contemporaneousness in poetry stands for writing in tune with the fad current in the days of the poet and nothing else.

A contemporary poet is simply a poet writing in our time. I'd be hard-pressed to discern any single dominant style, manner, or "fad". There are poets of real ability whose poems employ traditional forms; there are poets who have continued to build upon the innovations of Modernism, and there are poets who are even more experimental. Some poets of real merit are quite accessible and others are quite difficult.

[blank|verse]

shortstoryfan - It depends what you want to get out of writing poetry. Are you doing it just for enjoyment, or do you want to take it more seriously and try to get published?

If the former, then I would advise reading what you like, and reading widely, which should include contemporary poetry, but if you don't like it, stick to what you do enjoy.

If the latter, then it is absolutely essential that you read, and understand, current poetry, trends, use of language, form... everything.

It's also essential you understand free verse better. With respect, saying there is no craftsmanship behind it demonstrates a lack of understanding. The skill is just not as obvious as say, writing a Shakespearian sonnet or villanelle. (I've heard it said 'the purpose of art is to disguise art', so free verse writers appear to have succeeded there.) The rhythms, stresses, phrasings and cadences of the spoken voice come into play a lot more. In a way, it's more difficult to write free verse successfully, because there are more choices to be made, and they all have to be effective, either congruent or not with content - they have to be there for a good reason - but all this has to be decided by the poet, not just have it dictated by the poetry manual which tells you how to write a Pindaric ode or whatever.

It might help to listen to poets read free verse (try The Poetry Archive (http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do)for example) as that way you get a better understanding of how a piece should be read. Read slowly. It is rewarding once you get into it.

[Alexander III]

I have to agree with Blank Verse, anyone can write free verse, but to write good free verse takes a lot of craftsmanship, skill and having mastered meter.

[shortstoryfan]

@ blank|verse

Hmm. I think my third post may have given the impression that I believe that there is no craft in free verse. What I was meaning to say is that I get the sense that a lot of other people think that there is only craft in classic verse, or verse that adheres to a certain form, or keeps certain meter or rhyme schemes. I almost exclusively write free verse myself, and I feel that it does take craft, especially if one is paying attention to the music of the lines. And to write a finely tuned free verse line is craft.

I also don't write poetry just for fun or stress relief or personal expression. I definitely have publication on my list of goals.

Honestly, most of the poetry reading I've done (which is not a lot, or enough) is contemporary. I'm always on different literary journal websites looking to see if they have any poems to read, and my small bookshelf has poets like D.A. Powell, Rae Armantrout, Natasha Tretheway, Davis McCombs, Richard Siken, and Lyn Hejinian. I also try to read print journals as much as possible (my favorites are probably New England Review and The Southern Review, and ugh, Poetry of course).

I know a few people in the writing group I attend who want to be published never read any contemporary poetry or literary journals, and I know this forum is mainly focused on works that are considered "classics". I know a lot of you also write, and was wondering if you place importance in keeping up with what's current.

I am suprised and delighted at the number of responses so far! Thanks so much to everyone for sharing your opinions!

[JBI]

Heh, the term free verse is misleading, hence why critics now tend to prefer the term "open form" now, as free verse implies a sort of "freedom." Still, there are writers of form, and blank verse poetry today, and I suspect that will continue - simply put, even the loosest seeming poetry tends to have an invisible skeleton behind it in one form or another. Metric poetry just has the obvious feature of moving to the beat of an invisible kid hitting a stick against a table.

There is no less form in bending a poem around images, as W. C. Williams was fond of doing, or moving it around logical arguments, or in colons as the Bible is fond of doing (as is Whitman).

As for contemporary poetry - there isn't really a contemporary fad. There are contemporary poets, in that contemporary means writing now, but as for contemporary poetry? What is contemporary? Even the most experimental voices are only experimental in that they hold a tradition in the back of their mind.

As for publishing in the contemporary poetry journals, I will say it depends where you are. Due to the giant size of the American population, gimmick poetry has found more success, that is, movements centered around periodicals that focus on one trait, like L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, or New Formalism, or any other number of short lived "fads."

That is just the benefit of publishing in the US - as for us Canadians, we need to play a different game, everyone for himself. In criticism then, there lacks a debate about form as it has become a more live and let live, but I will tell you, publishing in good periodicals is near impossible, and connections certainly help. The odds of someone who isn't well read in contemporary poetics, in the sense of what is being published in the periodicals they are trying to be published in, of being published is rather minimal.

As it is, there is so much written, I think it is expected of poets these days to at least have read something after the death of Eliot, and to have something interesting to say. Still, the fad of mediocre verse has always been present, and people who don't read poetry tend to have a harder time realizing their verses are mediocre. To be honest, for a good poet, it would seem very nerve racking to get beyond the point of actually being satisfied with anything written, as knowing what is good, thereby being able to create something that approaches good, takes a lot of humbling, and self doubt.


As for reading periodicals, you're better off reading anthologies in my opinion. The anthology has been the dominant form of poetry in English since Lyrical Ballads (form as in, coherent structured artwork). That will paint a cleaner picture of how "Form" is working in today's sense.

[lallison]

I think that if you want to be published, reading and understanding contemporary poetry is important. I read a lot of modern poetry, but that's not written in the last 20 years. So I don't know the trends, but the poetry that surpassed the trends and gained long lasting fame, much written in the 50s and 60s and 70s. But today? I really don't know what's big out there. I wish I did, it would probably be helpful. But at the end of the day, it isn't the trendy poets who become classics. It's the ones that used the trends and then went on to do their own thing and start new trends (influences). So, I guess I would say that understanding contemporary poetry is important to getting published and getting published is generally important to preserving your writing. But what happens to your writing decades later depends on the vision of the poet and ability for people who live after her to relate to what she has written.

[Bastard Child]

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