Modern Poetry

[Leabhar]

I never said "modern poetry sucks", (as stlukesguild is saying in other threads now) or even anything like it. What I said can be easily read in this thread by anyone, even on the first page:

When did we let random words and psychotic babbling become mainstream poetry and when did real poetry become "outdated"?

This thread is named Modern Poetry because it is about modern poetry, but if I thought all modern poetry sucked I would've named it "Modern Poetry Sucks". One needs to look no further than the first and third posts of this thread to find the truth of the matter. I referred to "most modern free verse" in this poem when JBI asked to what type of poetry I was referring, which is apparently a blanket accusation:

Most modern free verse is just writing put into lines
Like this, is this poetry?
They just stole the name "poetry"
And made all other poetry nonexistent
The emperor has no clothes.

Now if Leabhar's claim was that writers like Bukowski are annoyingly wreched poets, then I think there would be little room for debate!

This type of poetry was actually what I was referring to, if anyone in the argument bothered to read my first and second posts in the thread before typing up essays to rebuke me. Supposedly I made "blanket" and "sweeping" statements, even while I said I liked certain poets out of other modern poets, etc.

After a visit to my local Borders I find myself almost agreeing with Leabhar. 21 different volumes by Maya Angelou, 22 by Charles Bukowski, 11 by Ginsberg... and one volume (an older one at that) by Ashberry, nothing by Wilbur, nothing by Heaney, nothing by Hecht... in fact only a single volume by Yeats. I was actually amazed to find 4 volumes by Anne Carson.

Funny that he is lamenting there being no Wilbur or Heaney, when I said they were some of my favorite of modern, living poets (they came up in the discussion because they are obviously representative, laureates and such). People misappropriated what I said, put words into my mouth, etc. Then came the "you're too lazy to read" and quotes accusing me of being a fool, etc. These people cannot have a decent debate or discussion for the life of them.

Anyway, I'm done with this discussion, there is no point in debating with these people when they resort to ad hominems, like mortalterror said (by the way, his post #63 I think, was spot on). Feel tree to continue the discussion without me.

[JBI]

Angelou doesn't really write free verse, just so you know, if that is anything. Her verse is a mix of classical patterns with unstylized lines, and inconstant metre.

This thread is about modern poetry (better termed contemporary poetry), and I think the conversation got over your sweeping statements and moved on. There doesn't seem to be any more need of you to make yourself seem avant garde, as no body, I would think, really is going to continue this argument any longer, as it isn't get anywhere.

Instead, it would appear the thread is shifting towards lamenting the unsophistication of bookstores, and a shared discussion on particularly touching, or excellent poets working today.

[Petrarch's Love]

The debate does indeed seem to have petered out, and it's probably best to put all the misunderstandings to rest for now. Just a finisher for me on the subject of Bukowski and big bookstores:

I'm telling you Petrarch there is a real constituency for Bukowski. You should see some of the arguments I've had here and elsewhere over him. You may be shocked but he will make the college classroom one day, if not already.

Oh, I know he has a following, and I was, of course, joking about his publisher having to sell volumes off in bulk discount (though I really do think that Angelou is probably more generally recognized). I'm also almost certain he's already been/being taught in a college classroom somewhere but, in terms of being taught as a major figure a several decades down the line, I don't think he's one that's going to have that kind of sticking power. In all fairness, though I personally can't stand his stuff, I've read a few things by him that had a certain degree of talent and intensity, but I don't think his verse has the sound to it that's going to make him stand out as time goes on. Could be wrong though. Someday I may find myself having a violent argument at a faculty meeting because they're trying to nudge my Milton class off the schedule in favor of my colleague's Bukowski course.

My Borders is not bad and neither is the Barnes and Noble on Staten Island is not too bad either. But the Barnes & Noble in up town Manhattan is excellent! You can find almost anyone. I guess I'm lucky living in New York. But why don't you people order from Amazon or one of the other on line book stores? If you know what you want you can find it at a reasonable price.

Yeah, the Barnes & Noble downtown here in Chicago actually has a pretty decent poetry section. I actually like both Borders and B&N. Their selection in general is pretty good, and the B&N near me in CA used to have a better poetry section. It's only been in the last year or so that there's been both less shelf space given to poetry there, and an entire shelf (I do not exaggerate) dedicated to the works of Bukowski. I do order books online all the time: from Barnes and Noble online, Amazon, etc., and I also have a great array of truly wonderful new and used book stores here in Hyde Park, so I don't really have any complaints about not being able to find what I want. It's just disappointing to one day wander over to your local B&N poetry section and find it the victim of a hostile Bukowski takeover.

[Leabhar]

Except I made no "sweeping statements", as I described in my last post. Why does everyone love that term? Even if I had used "sweeping statements", that wouldn't make them any less defensible, that's a logical fallacy. You put words in my mouth and used ad hominems as an attempt to win the argument, which I think was low class even anonymously online. I don't care about seeming avant garde, why would someone care about their reputation on an internet forum? Besides, insulting the avant garde isn't avant garde, its an attempted return to "normality".

[JBI]

Except I made no "sweeping statements", as I described in my last post. Why does everyone love that term? Even if I had used "sweeping statements", that wouldn't make them any less defensible, that's a logical fallacy. You put words in my mouth and used ad hominems as an attempt to win the argument, which I think was low class even anonymously online. I don't care about seeming avant garde, why would someone care about their reputation on an internet forum? Besides, insulting the avant garde isn't avant garde, its an attempted return to "normality".

The fact that you persist so adamantly in arguing is rather disappointing, as the thread, and the attention, has clearly departed. The discussion of poetry isn't about arguing to be right, but arguing to gain insight into the works, and nature of things, and gain new perspectives, and new ideas. As it is, you still persist on considering yourself the center of the thread, which you seem no longer to be. As you have stated, the thread isn't about the modern poetry being crap, but modern poetry. Therefore, stop pushing an argument which has now become irrelevant to the thread. The thread isn't about Leabhar, it's about poets, who happen to be modern (or better phrased, contemporary). Winning the argument isn't the main point anymore, as it has been surpassed with a more interesting conversation, not on the "merits" of contemporary poetry, but on certain contemporary poets, and our thoughts and feelings regarding their works.

[Leabhar]

The thread ceased to be about the argument because I was away for a day and it drifted into a different discussion. I'm back and had to respond to a whole page or more of posts. I also responded to your post because you continue to say misleading things about me. To think I shouldn't respond to a whole page of posts regarding me only because you think the thread isn't about me anymore (?), or because another discussion is going on, is ridiculous.

[stlukesguild]

Supposedly I made "blanket" and "sweeping" statements...

Flash Back:

When did we let random words and psychotic babbling become mainstream poetry and when did real poetry become "outdated"?

Most modern free verse is just writing put into lines

They just stole the name "poetry"
And made all other poetry nonexistent

The poets you listed (Yves Bonnefoy, Geoffrey Hill, Richard Wilbur, Charles Simic, Anthony Hecht, Wislawa Symborska, Adam Zagajewski, Czeslaw Milosz, Seamus Heaney, Homero Aridjis, Anne Carson, W.S. Merwin, John Ashberry, Yehuda Amichai) are mediocre at best compared with representatives from other ages

These poems, while better than the majority, still read like immature diddies compared with past poetry...

Modern poetry...has never been so distant, poetry has never had so few readers...

...the best poetry has to offer now is mediocre compared with past poetry...

The most common argument people have against modern poetry, rhythmic or otherwise, is that it almost sounds like a five year old could write it. And why not? Modern language is too simple and ugly, and modern poetry, like a five year old's writing, is convoluted and requires sitting there trying to think what the writer was trying to say...

Modern poetry doesn't have the right language...

Modern poetry is bad though, according to a lot of people, poets and readers alike. When one thinks even the most widely recognized and revered poets of the times are bad than you know something is wrong.

Modern poetry goes along with the decline of intelligent language.

The root of poetry and all literature is in language, and any historian of English or any linguist will tell you, or even a discerning reader, English is declining and becoming simpler.

High art is high art for a reason. Tradition is traditional for a reason. Modern poetry is anything but musical or lyrical to me, it is bland and dry... we use the most simple and dumbed down version of English yet to exist?

How exactly do we make sense of these two statements:

...the best poetry has to offer now is mediocre compared with past poetry...

Supposedly I made "blanket" and "sweeping" statements, even while I said I liked certain poets out of other modern poets

The majority here have bent over backward to be diplomatic... in spite of what might be seen as a statements that were rather intentionally inflammatory. One would not expect that one could walk into a group of contemporary artists or contemporary art connoisseurs and make declarations about psychotic babbling, the dumbed-down vocabulary, and the mediocrity of the best artists of today that appear as but immature scribbles without expected a response... perhaps even a heated one. Why did you expect to walk into a group who value literature... some of whom even value contemporary literature... and expect to make such statements without also raising some Cain?

You dislike Modern or Contemporary poetry. I have no problem with that. We all have our likes and dislikes. There is a difference between declaring that you dislike Modern poetry and declaring that "the best poetry has to offer now is mediocre compared with past poetry..." or that it "reads like immature ditties..." When you make declarations of judgment that seemingly go against commonly-held opinions (and we are not speaking of the opinions of the man on the street... we are talking about opinions of those who seriously invest time and effort in reading modern poetry... and about modern poetry) then it is assumed that the burden of proof rests upon the accuser. Mere repetition of personal opinion does not make it fact.

After a period of time it became clear that no such attempt at "proving" that your opinions were fact was forthcoming, and the discussion moved on. And now you return and want to pick up the fight again where you left off... without offering anything new? I'm sorry... there are some people whose opinions on this or that genre or form of literature I will seriously consider without evidence of proof... because they have established well and clear that they have a good deal of knowledge of what they speak. You do not fall into this group. Perhaps you have an advanced degree from Harvard or Oxford and are well known for your critical acumen in certain circles. From what you have posted here I get more of the sense of the all-too-common sophomoric student of literature with a smidgen of exposure to poetry who is deeply disconcerted by the challenges presented by contemporary literature, and lashes out blindly at those who may disagree with him... regardless or mindless of what their experience may or may not be. Again... I may be wrong. But it takes more than repeated declarations as to the mediocrity of modern poetry and the decline of the English language for one to be taken as something more than a crank.

[JBI]

On another subject that came to mind re-reading the post, is more complicated language necessarily better? I think of my personal poetic favorite right now, Giacomo Leopardi, the noted Italian classicist/romantic (he seems to fall in between there, and contain elements of both), whose poetics only became simpler as his career matured. The poem in my quote, features more idyllic qualities, and more fancy language than his later poems allow. Yet he matured as a poet, and didn't get worse. Why is it that we associate flowery language (the ones that come to mind first are Milton, Pope, and Tennyson) with good, as we can clearly see, poets like Shakespeare in his plays seem to have abandoned this flowery neo-classical mindset in their later works.

Of course, this is all surmising, as we all know, many poets simply only wrote a handful of good poems anyway, but is something as simple as Wordsworth's daffodils less beautiful than Tennyson's Lady of Shallot? I think what modernism, and now post-modernism are trying to do, is get beyond that. We are allowed to use flowery language, and structure, but in truth they aren't necessary. That isn't what the poem really is about; metre and form are only one aspect.

[Leabhar]

I don't think saying that past poetry had more vivid language, etc is a blanket statement. A lot of people agree with me on this, as I've said in plenty of posts. I also do not think I didn't back up my statements. I compared well known past poets to well known modern poets in a number of posts, I think you simply failed to overcome your conceited attitude to people who disagree with you.

Again, your attempted degrading of your opponent does nothing to promote your argument. Nor does your cry for more evidence or proof hold up to the evidence I've already given. Anyone can clearly see modern poetry uses a more simple language than even was in use a few decades ago. Posting a few poems as examples is almost pointless when anyone can go on Google and find almost infinite amounts of modern poetry. Your demands are quite ridiculous.

[Leabhar]

On the other hand... as much as I admire certain artists/writers/composers of today, I have more than a sneaking suspicion that we are not living in an era to match that which preceded us.

Hypocrisy has been discovered.

[JBI]

Hypocrisy has been discovered.

No it hasn't. Should we burn all of Bronzino's paintings because the Renaissance came before him? Or perhaps we should out with Victorian literature, since Romantic literature is more fun. Just because there was such a big dumping of extremely good art before, doesn't discredit today's art. It just means that we aren't as successful right now, not completely unsuccessful. And who knows - StLuke is only guessing.

[Jozanny]

JBI, I would still quibble that modern poetry and contemporary poetry can be bracketed off, with overlap, but none the less. Frost is modern, but really cannot be deemed contemporary. Vassar Miller, who is the goal I one day hope to match (no, not surpass, but match) it can be argued, can go either way--but I would argue she is falling into *modern* even though she falls within living memory of President Bush, who was supposed to award her an honor in Texas before she passed:

Vassar Miller

Subterfuge

I remember my father, slight,
staggering in with his Underwood,
bearing it in his arms like an awkward bouquet

for his spastic child who sits down
on the floor, one knee on the frame
of the typewriter, and holding her left wrist

with her right hand, in that precision known
to the crippled, pecks at the keys
with a sparrow’s preoccupation.

{excerpt}


Whereas I am her contemporary, occasionally a reflective image, and I assume I will not get into trouble for posting myself, as I own the copyright to all my published work:

Joanne Marinelli

The Blue Dressed Black Girl I Was Rolling Behind

Or a variant of turquoise in an hourglass of rhyme,
the sun danced and praised her and sparkled and spangled–
the cloak of an armor to win every battle:
the flash of a lance,
the sheen of a halo,
a spectrum of color caught in surprise–
the gold green of a peacock spread out in display
who shimmers and struts on a jingle of heel,
how afresh I could find wonder in the magic a
woman could hold, a confidence with grace in every
gesture, every curve,
made ready to climb and conquest the world,
like tortillas from Tucson rolled just the right
way,
all sizzle, all dazzle,
she commanded that day.

The corner we came to would bring us to part,
a silent separation she would never turn to see,
the wheelchair rolling from her who held a
woman who was me.

from Coloring Book, An Anthology

Hopefully, the comparison makes the point.

[Petrarch's Love]

Since this thing does in fact seem to be going on , I thought I'd put in my two cents as a relatively dispassionate observer:

1. Did St. Luke's allow his indignation/impatience to get the better of him, leading to some condescending sounding lines in some of his posts to Leabhar?: Yes!

2. Was Leabhar making some rather broad sweeping statements in the parts of his post that St. Luke's quotes above?: Absolutely!

I think from the start the crux of the debate has been less about modern poets people do or do not like and more about how one views history. Leabhar, I'm sorry, but the lines St. Luke's quoted above were also the ones I found problematic in your statements. You do seem to be making a very large generalizing claim in those statements about modern language (and thus modern poetry) being inferior to the history that preceeds it. The impression such claims give is that your view of literary history is one with a peak about a hundred years ago and an inexorable decline continuing into the present day, with our own age in a rather hopeless mess. You may believe that this generality about the past versus the present is true, which is fine. In that case you need to debate in terms of defending this particular view of history. However, even if they are viable opinions, you do have to at least acknowledge that statements like those quoted are general and sweeping statements about contrasting time periods. If you did not intend them to come across as such, then you need to clarify that a bit more.

Everyone seems to be agreeing that poetry is not at some great peak in this day and age. The main question seems to be about the view one takes of literary history. One way imagines it like a continuous series of waves in which there is consistently a certain amount of good and a certain amount of bad stuff produced in any age, with slight dips and swells that make certain ages a little more stand out than others. In this view the High Renaissance, for example, might be a crest of productivity, while the period that followed might be considered a slight dip. Yet this still wouldn't mean that there was no great artistic production in the period following the Renaissance (clearly there was a fair amount!). Similarly, this view would indicate that there may have been a slight swell in poetic output in say, the late 19th, early 20th century (just for the sake of argument) and a slight dip in, perhaps the last few decades, but it would not indicate that there is anything intrinsically wrong with our present period, just that we are experiencing the natural and continuous flow of artistic innovation.

Another way to view history would be to think that there was something particularly special happening in the past that led to great stuff being produced, and that there is something particularly wrong with our current culture, which is setting us in apart from the rest of history and the artistic traditions associated with that history. This view would suggest, not that we are part of ongoing and continuous sets of historical waves, but that we've broken this continuity in some fundamental way, which is impairing our ability to produce great verse. This struck me as the view that Leabhar was taking (please elaborate and correct me if I'm wrong, Leabhar) in the broad statements he was making. I actually think there are some things to be said for some aspects of this view in that it recognizes a certain dynamic that does propel art through the ages, namely a series of both breaks with the immediate past and attempts to reconnect with that past. However, I would set these moves toward rebellion and imitation within the context of the first model of history outlined above. In other words, while there certainly was a break with certain past traditions in the 20th century, this doesn't really mean a break with the past itself, but rather a repetition of a dynamic that has worked throughout the history of literature in which multiple small breaks, or innovations rebelling against the immediate past, combined with multiple small reconnections with or immitations of past periods have propelled the waves of continuous artistic production.

Of course there does need to be a balance between the innovative and the imitative, and Leabhar may have a point in that his underlying suggestion seems to be that poets should move in a more imitative direction, reconnecting with some of what worked in past poetry. If this is what he is trying to suggest (is it, Leabhar?), the main question then seems to be whether the break with the past, or the innovation which came between then and now, should be rejected in favor of a return to the past, or whether this would be an unproductive way of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and instead any imitative tendency needs to work within the framework of the current innovations.

[Jozanny]

The main question then seems to be whether the break with the past, or the innovation which came between then and now, should be rejected in favor of a return to the past, or whether this would be an unproductive way of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and instead any imitative tendency needs to work within the framework of the current innovations.

I'd opt for the latter, but what is upsetting my digestion in this discussion is any lack of examples from you, luke, or JBI, for that matter, about what contemporary poets are less than their progenitors, and why this is so. I think this is highly debatable, even easily refuted. Allen Tate's modernism is nearly breathtaking. Vassar, whom I love, has been critically acclaimed for making silence palpable. luke just introduced me to Carson, who--at least from his samples--has a distinct voice.

Poetry evolves, just like anything else, and a modern or contemporary introspective occupation doesn't mean this kind of poetry is less than its didactic public forebearers.

[JBI]

Honestly though - the last time poets tried to appeal to "classical models", and the trend took, we got the enlightenment - not a very good poetic output. Of all the centuries so far, in English poetry, from the 16th century, the 18th seems to be the dullest, as everyone seemed to be fixated entirely on neo-classicism, and couplets, to the point where creativity was compromised. Poetry needs to be innovative, and new, not classical.