Are Poets Born Not Made?

[MorpheusSandman]

I suspect someone like Quentin Tarantino will be viewed at some future point as an important artist, but does anyone really think of him as an intellectual?

Again, there's a disconnect between what was originally being said about artists studying their art and them being an academic. Tarantino has inhaled cinema from a young age and has built his entire cinema out of mixing the past in ways that transgress typical genre bounds. He has clearly studied film, and is himself an outspoken critic. No, he's not a David Bordwell, but nobody is saying poets must be great academics. It's two different disciplines. They must study the art from the perspective of an artist, and then, perhaps, take into account the perspectives of critics and audiences.

I'd hesitate to call Tarantino a great/important artist, though--I guess he's probably the most important mainstream filmmaker of the last 20 years, but I think his success will likely depends on how long postmodernism is still thought of as being cool and hip, because outside of that I don't think his films have the substance of the popular films of, say, Hitchcock (although maybe Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds have their moments).

Well, it's a threat to those who defend The Canon at all cost. I find that most people who are into literature are traditionalists;

The canon is hardly static. In the 20th Century alone Donne went from being practically forgotten to being considered one of the greatest to ever write in the language. Likewise, certain romantics have suffered since modernism, including Byron and Coleridge, while those like Blake rose through the ranks. I think there are few that "defend the canon" without attempting to add to or subtract from it, and while we may not be settled as to what 20th Century names will take their place alongside the Shakespeares, Chaucers, and Keats, I do think there's more than one name that is in position to do them (Neruda, Stevens, Auden, Lowell, Hill, Larkin, Merrill, Ashbery etc.).

What I see is a lot of poetry based on established form and I hardly ever see anything that's obscure.

What books are you reading? Because there's not a lot of formal poetry I see published in Poetry, APR, Tin House, Ploughshares, etc. Stallings is one of the few major names I know of that writes primarily in classic forms.

That's the thing, free verse -- or more appropriately, open verse, which is what I think a lot of people here refer to as free verse -- is not just random words on a page. There is the use of white space to give effect and meaning, as well as line lengths and line breaks.

There's undoubtedly an art to free-verse, but it's an art that's no different than verse in terms of needing to be learned, they're only different in kind. But free-verse CAN be written by just writing off the top of one's head and then breaking the lines at random. Of course, the good poets don't do this, anymore than good poets are slavish to form without knowing how to vary that form or use it expressively.

[Delta40]

Bukowski's reply to somebody when asked how he writes and creates:

You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: 'not' to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it."

[OrphanPip]

Surprising as it may seem, I agree with you, J. I think now that poetry has been almost entirely co opted by the academy that it can be hard to realize that it wasn't always such an academic affair. Byron was something of a rock star. Blake was an engraver.

English Poetry in Modernity has almost always been a kind of elitist pursuit though, consumed primarily by either the rich (most of which had classical educations) or later by those with a certain kind of specialized education or experience with the genre.

There are exceptions, like Tennyson, who had moments of being best sellers in their lifetime. However, most of the important poets were not "widely read" in the same way as novelists like Richardson were (who was an international sensation during his lifetime). Many Modernist like Elliot had most of their poems published in magazines with circulations in the mid hundreds. The first print run of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads was considered very successful for a poetry collection because it sold 180 copies.

Poets have always had to rely on a sort of patronage, or had to have been independently wealthy because it's difficult to make money as a poet. The amount of individuals who made enough money to live off of their poetic production is fairly small. Many contemporary poets are academics for the same reason. They need a day job to survive as a poet.

[Drkshadow03]

Well, it's a threat to those who defend The Canon at all cost. I find that most people who are into literature are traditionalists; they stick to what they were taught. We all know who "the greats" are supposed to be: Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc. A few modern poets may be allowed as well, guys such as Robert Frost or Wallace Stevens, but if it falls outside of whatever anthology they studied at university, it is usually treated with extreme suspicion. It's crap, in other words and can be safely ignored. These same people, if they had been alive in the 18th or 19th century would have had the same reaction to poets such as Alexander Pope or Tennyson.

Oh, I don't know. Given that Mutatis was responding to St Luke I would say this probably isn't the case since St Luke has one of the most prodigious knowledge of literature on these boards. It could just be that St Luke doesn't like Maya Angelou or Charles Bukowski or think much of their talent.

[JCamilo]

I would argue that Keats was a kind of natural intellectual that preferred not to develop any of his theories and ideas, but he still clearly thought deeply about poetry, as even many of his comments and scribblings testified to. He was not one who just sat down and poured out words randomly on a page without considering their effect. To Autumn is one of the most meticulously composed poems in terms of form that's ever been written--certainly not the product of a mind that had never given a thought to form or how poetry worked.

I was using intellectual as the class of person, the scholar, academic which Keats was never (he didnt had the luxury of rebelion to be expelled like Shelley, Byron nobility or Wordsworth or Coleridge education and time for travels around Europe) but even we consider otherwise, "natural intellectual", as a savant of sorts, we have somethng strange, a suggestion that his genius was inate.

Yet, if we consider the most mythic story of composition reggarding Keats, Ode to a Nightingale - Keats sits, hears the bird, writes the poem already done - we see an emphasis on emotion flow in a romantic style, pretty much alike Wordsworth claim. He is not so bound to the nature = poetry, like Shelley's bird, but he do let his emotion conduct his poetry. To Autumm has similar inspiration. The poem was close to his final version already when he wrote. His poetry or perhaps Keats greatest power is the musical ear, he finds great lines which are sometimes lost in not so good poem. I can imagine him reading Shakespeare and giving first steps to sonnets and working until the technique seemed to be natural to him. Same with odes, he was working on it, Autumn is his last one and all others have "buts' on structure, but the pratice was leading him to perfection.

I am aware that I do not overly disagree with you, but I was also replying to Pierre conclusion. 'Obvious understanding" is far too much. Study also. If we look the romantics, Keats probally couldn't explain - hence why he never did - other poets. He could probally feel their beauty then work on reproducing then developing it. Wordsworth preface is not a great explanation, it is almost a personal introspective view of his own poetry. No wonder it was supposed to be Coleridge's, which is probally the only of them who could understand it, yet, had so much difficulty to put in pratice his knowledge. And even Coleridge seems to put inspiration over form, with the Kublai Khan dream story. The truth is there is not so many writers who are so critical to be able to analyse or understand what is art. Shakespeare probally would be unable to explain Shakespeare.

Really, that kind of "study" is all I meant by the term in the first place. Obviously being a great poet does not require one to be a scholar or academic. But it does require reading and studying one's predecessors, studying form and the various effects of poetry, and understand how to translate what you want to express into that formal language that poetry innately is. It's more than just "Oh, I had a bad break up, let me sit down and pour my heart on a page and break lines and rhyme at complete random."

I do think many of them did so and also you may be exagerating because lots of bad poetry is written this way today, but anyways the word study obviously imply something academic, a scholar. I can see one reading until reaching the familiarity with the poet, the poetry, but even so I think this is but the first (or a handful of first) step. Their pratice take them to more notion of poetry. Make them poets and not readers. But this is a kind of poet, recent, with libraries nearby. Popular poetry and more older poetry does not present such oportunity to a continued study or even reading of other poets.

[stlukesguild]

Well, it's a threat to those who defend The Canon at all cost. I find that most people who are into literature are traditionalists; they stick to what they were taught. We all know who "the greats" are supposed to be: Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc. A few modern poets may be allowed as well, guys such as Robert Frost or Wallace Stevens, but if it falls outside of whatever anthology they studied at university, it is usually treated with extreme suspicion. It's crap, in other words and can be safely ignored. These same people, if they had been alive in the 18th or 19th century would have had the same reaction to poets such as Alexander Pope or Tennyson.

Oh, please! There is no need to defend the canon or the writers therein... certainly not from the opinions of anyone on an online literature forum. Bukowski isn't a great poet for the simple reason that he's a crappy writer... not because he is a contemporary, "cutting edge" author who challenges the tradition. Rimbaud was every bit as scatological and far more challenging 100 years ago. Hell, François Villon is more unsettling to the tradition... in spite of the fact (or perhaps because of the fact) that he was writing 600 years ago.

You want to shake up the "tradition"? Try T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Charles Olson, Christian Morgenstern, César Vallejo, or Anne Carson.

Seriously your attack upon the close-minded academy of traditionalists reminds me of the pop star, Jewell, who published a collection of "poems" some years back that were little more than a teenage girls ramblings in her journal (not far from Bukowski?). The book was naturally panned by the critics. Jewell responded, suggesting that all the critics (who read poetry for a living) were simply unable to recognize just how "new" and "innovative" her work was. One had to wonder just how many modern... let alone contemporary poets Jewell had read.

The fact that you would include Robert Frost or Wallace Steven among the few "modern" poets read by the "traditionalists" suggests that you may have a rather limited idea as to what actually constitutes "new poetry". There have been more than a few poets since Frost and Steven who are taken seriously... even if the merits of their achievements are not universally agreed upon.

Among those poets (respected in academia) writing well into the latter 20th century (and even into the 21st) you can count Pablo Neruda, Charles Wright, Gu Cheng, Yves Bonnefoy, Eugenio Montale, Octavio Paz, Charles Simic, John Ashbery, John Berryman, Charles Olson, Galway Kinnell, Richard Wilbur, Anthony Hecht, Mark Strand, W.S. Merwin, Homero Aridjis, Anne Carson, Odysseus Elytis, Giorgos Seferis, Richard Howard, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, A.R. Ammons, C.K. Williams, Paul Kane, James Merrill, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Geoffrey Hill, Eugénio de Andrade, Rafael Alberti, Jorge Guillén, Edmond Jabès, Yehuda Amichai, Mahmoud Darwish, Adunis, Nâzım Hikmet, etc... (Just a few poets from the shelves of a poetry reader who is far from being an "academic").

[JCamilo]

Surprising as it may seem, I agree with you, J. I think now that poetry has been almost entirely co opted by the academy that it can be hard to realize that it wasn't always such an academic affair. Byron was something of a rock star. Blake was an engraver.

I think in a way the "Academy" knows. We have really few good writers with academic degrees (writers of poetry and fiction), there is even some consirable abyss between those theorics and critical writers (I have seen one disconsider Borges, Virginia Woolf, etc as true criticals because they lacked academic formation and never produced a theory, despite their knowledge and insight on literature) and of course, the disdaim certain academic areas have for art degrees. But yes, the students seems to confund the thing, ignore overly the popular art and look the past and stabilished cannon as if they great intellectual leaders - a concept from XIX century for artists and poets.

Even if we consider only the "academics" as scholars, how many great writters fit in the description? The thinker object was usually religion or philosophy. Writting was not considered such great intellectual feat. Bacon over Shakespeare. The Reinassence changes a little, because of Dante, but he is rare and even supposed scholars like Chaucer, Ariosto, were narrators. They will get patronage, as Pip said, but not such status. Only Voltaire and Goethe managed to carry such status. But we know, Goethe refused to be called a philosopher, Voltaire was a philosopher in spirit but not in body and his artistic work was often apart, even style wise, from his 'serious" work.

I can see Morpheus example as the artist having familiarity with his past, his experience reading him giving him notions, but the jump to someone who can understand art is too much. It is turning all of them in T.S.Eliot. (Neither saying Morpheus did this jump).

Think about more relevant media today. I suspect someone like Quentin Tarantino will be viewed at some future point as an important artist, but does anyone really think of him as an intellectual? Of course, he's seen a lot of films, but no one would accuse him of being "academic." Was Charlie Parker an intellectual? I don't think so. Like you say, every artist has some experience with the work in his medium. It would seem nearly impossible for it to be otherwise. But I'm not so sure that they are all uniformly what might be called "studied." And there are too many examples of plainly unstudied artists to suggest that serious study is requisite.

I think Tarantino pleases the academic, because all he does is a "masturbation" of filming techniques and dialogues but yes, i agree. I do not know Parker enough, but music, may be a good example of a more natural apititude. Do B.B.King reasonalise his chords? Also, how many great critics, with enough knowledge to explain art or literature were unable to write like the subject of their knowledge. Croce wrote how many great poems?

The Duende was a good example and I suspect the question of the thread opener was more in this line. She probally consider some degree of education - be it formal, be it experience - is necessary. I suppose her question is if you can be taught to capture the Duende, to summon the Muses, to use opium (like the romantics did), etc.

[stlukesguild]

Also, how many great critics, with enough knowledge to explain art or literature were unable to write like the subject of their knowledge.

There's always Borges...


And perhaps Umberto Eco... but seriously, I'd take Italo Calvino over Eco any day.

Does an excess of knowledge inhibit great art? I doubt it. I always loved Renoir's quote, "First become a master of your craft; it never prevented anyone from becoming a genius" (Not that Renoir was either a master or intellectual... let alone a "genius"). Still there are more than a few truly intellectual poets: Petrarch must surely count... as well as Dante, Milton, T.S. Eliot, Goethe, etc...

[cafolini]

Italo Calvino's Numbers in the Dark and Cosmicomics are some of the best pieces of the 20th century; succint, clear, simple, meaningful.

[Pierre Menard]

Well, it's a threat to those who defend The Canon at all cost. I find that most people who are into literature are traditionalists; they stick to what they were taught. We all know who "the greats" are supposed to be: Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc. A few modern poets may be allowed as well, guys such as Robert Frost or Wallace Stevens, but if it falls outside of whatever anthology they studied at university, it is usually treated with extreme suspicion. It's crap, in other words and can be safely ignored. These same people, if they had been alive in the 18th or 19th century would have had the same reaction to poets such as Alexander Pope or Tennyson.

Or maybe it's because people like Bukowski just aren't very good poets. Rambling, repetitive nonsense with not enough skill to justify said rambling and repetitiveness.
I've read so many of his poems where it seems like he's basically written a paragraph, randomly cut it and shoved it on a page vertically. He did nothing new or innovative and didn't do 'the old' particularly well. It honestly feels like reading a high-school kids poetry who thinks he's badass because he's talking about ****ing. I cut your last paragraph, but you mentioned that his poetry is for the common person...does that make it good? I mean, Law and Order is a cop show for the common person, but it's nowhere near as brilliant as say...The Wire. There are films for the 'common person', doesn't mean they're as good as Citizen Kane. And so on.

I feel I've drifted a little off topic...Bukowski's juvenile nonsense does that to me...

[paradoxical]

Oh, please! There is no need to defend the canon or the writers therein... certainly not from the opinions of anyone on an online literature forum. Bukowski isn't a great poet for the simple reason that he's a crappy writer... not because he is a contemporary, "cutting edge" author who challenges the tradition. Rimbaud was every bit as scatological and far more challenging 100 years ago. Hell, François Villon is more unsettling to the tradition... in spite of the fact (or perhaps because of the fact) that he was writing 600 years ago.

You want to shake up the "tradition"? Try T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Charles Olson, Christian Morgenstern, César Vallejo, or Anne Carson.

For someone who says there is "no need to defend the canon"...especially not from "anyone on an online literature forum" you seem to be doing just that. I also doubt that you ever really gave Bukowski a fair chance. Is Maya Angelou also a "crappy writer"? Indeed, there is no need to defend the canon, the establishment has already taken care of that. Respectable people with advanced degrees write off certain poets and that gives others the power to pronounce their work as worthless and undeserving of merit. I have heard the same argument before: oh, you think Bukowski/Kerouac/Ginsburg was a rebel, try reading this poet from 100 years ago. The point being, that poet is already accepted by the establishment. I have read Rimbaud and Baudelaire and am a fan of both, esp. Rimbaud; but Bukowski appeals to me more. I also found it a little amusing that you suggest T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound as an example of "shaking up the tradition". I would say that both are now considered part of the tradition although in all fairness I will admit that I am a big fan of Eliot and I realize that he really did shake up the tradition at the time, the same as Pound. Eliot still causes some discomfort to this day.

Seriously your attack upon the close-minded academy of traditionalists reminds me of the pop star, Jewell, who published a collection of "poems" some years back that were little more than a teenage girls ramblings in her journal (not far from Bukowski?). The book was naturally panned by the critics. Jewell responded, suggesting that all the critics (who read poetry for a living) were simply unable to recognize just how "new" and "innovative" her work was. One had to wonder just how many modern... let alone contemporary poets Jewell had read.

Now I think that's a bit unfair. My words were not an "attack" and I would ask that you not compare me to Jewell. I have never read her poetry, which was probably awful, but I suspect that it was better then a "teenage girls ramblings in her journal". And the fact that you say this is not far from Bukowski tells me you are either very cynical or have never read Bukowski, at least not in depth. And Jewel does have a point: many critics do fail to recognize new and innovative work. There is a lot of good stuff in the underground that would never make it into Plougshares, that's for sure.

The fact that you would include Robert Frost or Wallace Steven among the few "modern" poets read by the "traditionalists" suggests that you may have a rather limited idea as to what actually constitutes "new poetry". There have been more than a few poets since Frost and Steven who are taken seriously... even if the merits of their achievements are not universally agreed upon.

Among those poets (respected in academia) writing well into the latter 20th century (and even into the 21st) you can count Pablo Neruda, Charles Wright, Gu Cheng, Yves Bonnefoy, Eugenio Montale, Octavio Paz, Charles Simic, John Ashbery, John Berryman, Charles Olson, Galway Kinnell, Richard Wilbur, Anthony Hecht, Mark Strand, W.S. Merwin, Homero Aridjis, Anne Carson, Odysseus Elytis, Giorgos Seferis, Richard Howard, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, A.R. Ammons, C.K. Williams, Paul Kane, James Merrill, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Geoffrey Hill, Eugénio de Andrade, Rafael Alberti, Jorge Guillén, Edmond Jabès, Yehuda Amichai, Mahmoud Darwish, Adunis, Nâzım Hikmet, etc... (Just a few poets from the shelves of a poetry reader who is far from being an "academic").

I realized when I wrote that that many would not consider Frost to be a modern poet. I have always considered him to be a traditionalist. However, he is always included as an example of modern poetry in every anthology I have read. I may be wrong, but I believe Stevens on the other hand is universally accepted as an example of modern poetry. And yes, I started to mention other names such as Wilfred Own, E.A. Robinson, Plath, Sexton, and Philip Larken. I have read more then you think. Even dubious poets such as Stevie Smith are included in these anthologies; but we were talking about "great" poets and, as you acknowledge, these poets are not universally agreed upon. The establishment moves slowly. It may take another 50 to 100 years for contemporary poets to be included in the canon. This applies to many of the other poets you named, although Neruda and W.S. Merwin are highly respected. I will admit that most of the names you mentioned are not familiar to me, and while it is not fair to dismiss work that one has not read, I imagine that I would find most of these poets -- who are respected in academia -- dull and unappealing. I quit reading pretentious literary journals years ago. I find more exciting voices in zines or on the web. However, I can assure you that I have studied the canon and establishment writers. Before zines and the internet, there was nothing else to study and there are many old, respected voices that I still love such as Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, even Shakespeare. Please realize as well that these are only my thoughts and observations. You are obviously very well-read and educated. I respect your opinion. I certainly don't mean to attack anyone or their beliefs.

[JCamilo]

Also, how many great critics, with enough knowledge to explain art or literature were unable to write like the subject of their knowledge.

There's always Borges...


And perhaps Umberto Eco... but seriously, I'd take Italo Calvino over Eco any day.

Does an excess of knowledge inhibit great art? I doubt it. I always loved Renoir's quote, "First become a master of your craft; it never prevented anyone from becoming a genius" (Not that Renoir was either a master or intellectual... let alone a "genius"). Still there are more than a few truly intellectual poets: Petrarch must surely count... as well as Dante, Milton, T.S. Eliot, Goethe, etc...

This goes even better if we remember artists are first and foremost crafters, the "special destiny" of poets is too recent. But does not answer if the genius was inate or not. If the sparrow flaps his wings up and down or down and up....

And Eco is a good example. He must squirm in his bed every night know full well what made Borges and Joyce good and that he just cannot make it. It must be painful.

[stlukesguild]

There's always that old adage, "God does not engage in theology"... It suggests... or explains how certain creative geniuses are far from being academic geniuses who can analyze and explain what they (and others) are doing as artists. But there are more than a few exceptions. J.L. Borges was probably more well-read than Harold Bloom... and still can write better than Bloom (and is probably a better critics as well). The Renaissance stressed the notion of the artist/academic... it was a means of the artist gaining respect as something more than a skilled craftsman. Petrarch, Dante, Cellini, Michelangelo Buonarotti, Brunelleschi, Leonardo Da Vinci, Giorgio Vasari, Leon Battista Alberti, Raphael, etc... among others were considered the ideal artist/creators. All were accomplished and respected for their scholarly efforts as well as their creative/artistic endeavors.

[JCamilo]

I guess Borges sittuation is special. He is not academic by formation, but the academic texts are his breakfast, specially when we consider true academic formation - the study of philosophy - and writing like it (also somehow a matter of style) was part of his realism - fantasy idea.

Renaissence changes a bit, because of course they redefine the very concept of academia and what is taught there. But all those guys, admired yes, weren't the academy when they worked. All their knowledge was pretty much pratical. Dante and I think Petrarca are those who used time to explain and discuss their work under the light of medieval aesthetic philosophy. Da Vinci diary is closer to a guide, very pratical, of engineering than Dante's meditations on "Il Convivio". Him or Michelangelo even defy any classification, artists or philosopher I would say. Probally we should say they are a "Cthutulu".

I would say most artists adhere to Robert Frost: "but you want me to write it in a worst way?" simple because it is true. They work hard to find the best solution and someone want to make them talk in way they have abandoned...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Well, it's a threat to those who defend The Canon at all cost. I find that most people who are into literature are traditionalists; they stick to what they were taught. We all know who "the greats" are supposed to be: Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc. A few modern poets may be allowed as well, guys such as Robert Frost or Wallace Stevens, but if it falls outside of whatever anthology they studied at university, it is usually treated with extreme suspicion. It's crap, in other words and can be safely ignored. These same people, if they had been alive in the 18th or 19th century would have had the same reaction to poets such as Alexander Pope or Tennyson.

Paradoxical, I'm not sure how criticizing Maya Angelou and Bukowski is attacking the canon, when it's not very far-fetched at all to say they're within the canon. You yourself say that Bukowski is well known, and Maya Angelous is almost always in American poetry anthologies, and I've been taught her poems in multiple university classes. Honestly, I've never met someone who reads a poem and goes.

I always tire of the anti-canon campaign. I always think, it's the canon for a reason, those books are there for a reason, and what's more likely, that those books stay in the canon because all those academics are posers and like them to just to keep up appearances . . . or is it because they're actually good? I think the old adage of "the simplest answer is usually the correct one" applies here.

I've also never met anyone, professors included (you know, those nefarious perpetuator of the brain-washing canon), who adopts some sort of attitude of, "Oh, that's not a part of the canon, so I don't like it," or, inversely, "Oh, that's in the canon, so I automatically love it." Sure, there are a few truly snobbish professors, but most I've met aren't above reading fantasy, sci-fi, or some other piece of genre fiction. And, even the snobbish ones, maybe that's just their taste, you know? Again, what's more likely, someone liking only highbrow art and nothing else to keep up appearances only, or that that's what they actually like?

This! Most students of literature take it for granted that Universities have the final word on who is good. The truth is that such decisions are made by readers at large. I was actually going to draw the same exact comparison with Berryman, but I thought it would be too controversial. I mean does anyone outside a University setting know who Berryman is? I'm sure tons of people know about Bukowski--not that that alone means anything. But let's face it, some of Bukowski's poetry is moving--some stories too (but I find his novels uniformly mediocre).

I think sometimes what passes for taste is simply acquired snobbery--sort of similar to how twenty-year old kids with contrived personalities drink dark beer on extremely hot days since, you know, dark beers are "better".

Or maybe they like dark beer. It's not outside the realm of possibility, is it? Frankly, I think anyone who drinks beer is a poser--that stuff tastes terrible.