Is poetry popular in your country?

[JBI]

The question wasn't about fame. It was about selling: "can a man live of poetry?" ... According to a capitalist view. I agree with you that in the Western world, things aren't, conciously, made to last; however, some things last randomly. We cannot forsee what will last, because a huge amount is produced, and in the big cities (NY, Rio, ...) most everyone "is a poet/writer", and only time will tell which of them will last, independant of merits, in cases (...). As you said, there may be 10 Canadian "poets" (self called, perhaps ...), and one Muslim poet (who might not even consider himself so), and the Muslim is definitely better than all the 10 Canadians together.

This is the main reason I tell people that they should not think about live (=make money/sell) out of their writing. To have a salary, you have to do a constant work, and art isn't necessarily a constant production. Journalism may be (unfortunately ...), but not art. This is my view, of course.

Unless, like some ... poets (?) in Brasil, who actually live like tramps, and don't have great expectations of a common life (i.e. living in a nice place, being well with their families (parents), thinking about settling down, with a wife, have kids ... Things that mortal thingies (like me) think about ...

Live of art is delusion, unless you make it a product. Painting seems to be at the same time easier and more difficult, but poetry? It's complete delusion. Good poetry seldom sells and, when it sells, and the poet tries to make more to keep selling, 99% chance he's been corrupted, and is doing the same thing, and not something actually good as the first, and he's doing it in order to sell, not poetry anylonger, but a name that has achieved a certain value in the market. And fools will buy it. (And it happens more with fictional literature, and very difficultly with poetry. I consider good writing posthumous, poetry even more than that. Unless the "poet" is a jester, in a modern court (...).)

Paruos~

Poetry though, requires a poetic reputation to follow poems. A sort of mythical fixation around an artist, or a piece of art is necessary for poetry to really thrive - Eliot's 'The Waste Land', for instance, was essential in forming the post-war poetry of his generation, because of its lasting influence as a voice for a culture. If poets are read once, and then thrown away, or read only a few times by a few people, poetry itself loses meaning. It is a conversation, keep in mind, and in order for things to speak, a certain reputation needs to be awarded the art, and to a lesser extent the artist. I don't particularly see that in my culture, but I see that in, for instance, Palestinian culture. Without a sense of structure to the conversation, the whole thing merely falls apart.


The question then becomes, what is behind the popularity - if we mean do people read poetry - statistically, the rates are generally up. If we mean that people care about the poetry they read, and perhaps discuss it, and reread it, then that is something different.

Millions saw the Inauguration Poem being recited. Did the poem really mean anything though, or was it really just, 'words, words, they have their meanings... people walk down the street.' etc. etc.

[librarius_qui]

Poetry though, requires a poetic reputation to follow poems. A sort of mythical fixation around an artist, or a piece of art is necessary for poetry to really thrive - Eliot's 'The Waste Land', for instance, was essential in forming the post-war poetry of his generation, because of its lasting influence as a voice for a culture. If poets are read once, and then thrown away, or read only a few times by a few people, poetry itself loses meaning. It is a conversation, keep in mind, and in order for things to speak, a certain reputation needs to be awarded the art, and to a lesser extent the artist. I don't particularly see that in my culture, but I see that in, for instance, Palestinian culture. Without a sense of structure to the conversation, the whole thing merely falls apart.


The question then becomes, what is behind the popularity - if we mean do people read poetry - statistically, the rates are generally up. If we mean that people care about the poetry they read, and perhaps discuss it, and reread it, then that is something different.

Millions saw the Inauguration Poem being recited. Did the poem really mean anything though, or was it really just, 'words, words, they have their meanings... people walk down the street.' etc. etc.

Interesting thoughts

I notice that Roman writers are vaguely discerned (either as historians, or philosophers ...), but poets are very well marked as poets.

What you say makes sense, a lot of sense.

I think the Western societies are in a time of cultural crisis due to the exageration of the capitalist way of life. (I don't think "communisms" to be any sort of solution, only that our societies have some corruptions of value and morals that make some things to loose sense, being poetry and thought, and university some of the things that have lost their value, these days.)

Our societies need thought. Any sort of thought that gives ways to new possibilities, because we're completely walking in circles.

The XVth century stumbled upon "the New World", America ... The Xth century went in search of the Holy Land ... The Vth century saw Rome invaded by the barbari ...

Either we invest in conquering space, or we wait for modern Rome to be invaded by "barbarians" ...

Literature is what will give ways of thinking what to do ahead, I believe. However, when I write about conquering the Solar system (actually, without light speed, _which we don't have_, without alien contact _which we can't cause_, without laser weapons or anti-gravity inside spaceships _which are a bit unlikely to be found_ ..), people think I'm doing nonsense. No: I'm writing as Jules Verne did. He proposed some things that were possible, though not easy to achieve. Well, it isn't easy to send people to live in colonies on the Moon, or Mars, or Jupiterian Europa, but ... what are we waiting for?

But I strayed from poetry, here. However, poetry, alike, should give people -- in Western societies -- something real, and more interesting than being famous, or rich (hahaha! what a delusion!~). In the Middle-East, I believe they don't care much about being famous, because other things concern them more.

[librarius_qui]

However, poetry seems to have fallen in mere formalism or in insanity (the poet as a man who can't be understood).

The place for formalism is closed (extremely speciallized pseudo-university) circles, and the place for crazy people are institutions (which makes me think of that movie, "12 monkeys" ...).

This is the Western poet to me, nowadays, as I see them (and since the late XIXth century): either a teacher/intellectual, or a crazy lunatic tramp.

---

(Which is, as well, the reason why I don't make poetry, but other kinds of writing.)

[JBI]

However, poetry seems to have fallen in mere formalism or in insanity (the poet as a man who can't be understood).

The place for formalism is closed (extremely speciallized pseudo-university) circles, and the place for crazy people are institutions (which makes me think of that movie, "12 monkeys" ...).

This is the Western poet to me, nowadays, as I see them (and since the late XIXth century): either a teacher/intellectual, or a crazy lunatic tramp.

---

(Which is, as well, the reason why I don't make poetry, but other kinds of writing.)

Not really - just in certain cultures. The demented poet seems very Uncanadian to me, for instance, since most poets here are mentally stable, and seem to merely be creative. We like to think of poetry as the subconscious of eccentrics, but that is rarely true. The Poetry itself id designed to lie, or at least not tell the truth, so the most hysteric sounding Atwood poem is merely an act, or the most sincere love poem merely a gimmick to get a girl in bed. Poetry is an illusion more than anything else, and anyone can be the illusionist. One of the best living American poets, for instance, Richard Wilbur, has hardly had an exciting life, and is hardly unstable, yet somehow he gets by.

There are poets who are teachers, business men, journalists, doctors, laborers - you name it.

The real problem though, is that people generally don't read or understand contemporary poetry. Every child may read Wordsworth, but does that even make poetry popular? Contemporary poetry is the lifeblood of poetry, yet somehow it gets neglected during certain time periods, perhaps this one included.

I think though, our culture right now is too bored to honor poets, or read poetry. I think that is our cultural mentality - a sense of boredom with existence perpetuated by an increasing lack of concreteness or meaning in the ordinary everyday, like everyone is trapped in Prufrockian aporia.

Perhaps a voice needs to come and break that, but as of now, things just don't really mean anything anymore, so a sense of poetry that really speaks, and is able to popularly capture the spirit of an age or people is lost to many of us. People would rather sit and watch TV, and watch the hours tic by than do anything, since quite simply, I don't think people see a point. I don't think people would see a point in reading poetry, or believing in something.

[librarius_qui]

Vth. Rome was invaded. They ("we") didn't expect.
Xth. Europe invaded Jerusalem. They didn't expect; "we" did it.
XVth. Searching for to get to China through the west, through a world we didn't know, "we" found a new land ...
XXIst. (?)

---

I think the poet is seldom known in his own time, and it is ... as it is. (Who's Richard Wilbur?? I never heard of him. Have you ever heard of Marcio-Andre? He's an interesting poet to me ... However I .. don't quite understand (or even 'like' his poetry, I have to say that he *is* interesting ...)

They will possibly be known after they're dead. One, because writing remains longer than men. Two, because some poets live short lives. (Maybe not the case of Richard Wilbur but apparently the case of Marcio-Andre ...)

[librarius_qui]

I was in hope to prove that poets live short, but I'm very disappointed ...

Among some of the main Roman writers -- those whose texts remained (I've taken the list from The Latin Library, www.thelatinlibrary.com) --, there isn't sufficient data to tell that poets live shorter than other kinds of writers.

We can notice, however that they quite outnumber other kinds of writers!

SEQUENCIAL LIST

Quintus Ennius, 239-169, poet (70)
Marcus Porcius Cato Maior Censor, 224-147, historian (77)
Publius Terentius Afer (Terence), 190-159, writer of plays (actor?) (31)
Marcus Terentius Varro, 117-27, grammarian (90)
Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43, philosopher and preacher (63)
Gaius (C) Iulius Caesar, 100-44, politician (56)
Cornelius Nepos, 100- 25, historian (75)
Titus Lucretius Carus, 99-55, poet (44)
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, 86-35, historian (32)
Gaius Valerius Catullus, 84-54, poet (30)
Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil), 70-?, poet*
Quintus Horatius Flacco (Horace), 65-8 bC, poet (73)
C Iulius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, 63 bC-14 aD, politician, king (77)
Titus Livius (Livy), 59 bC-17 aD, historian (76)
Sextus Aurelianus Porpertius (Porperce), 50 bC-16 aD, poet (66)
Albius Tibullus, 50-19 bC, poet (69)
Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid), 43 bC-?, poet
Gaius Iulius Phaedrus, 20 bC-50 aD, writer of prose (70)
Gaius Velleius Paterculus, 19 bC-?
Lucius Annaeus Seneca Minor, 4 bC-65 aD, philosopher (69)
Gaius Plinius Secundus Maior (Pliny), 23-69 aD (46)
Tiberius Catius Asconius Sillus Italicus, 26-101, poet (75)
Aulus Persius Flaccus, 34-62, philosopher (Stoicism) (28)
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, 35-?, preacher
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (Lucan), 39-65, poet (26)
Sextus Iulius Frontinus, 40-103 (63)
Marcus Valerius Martialis (Martial), 40-103 (63)
Publius Papinius Statius, 40-95, poet (55)
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (Juvenal), 60-130, poet (70)
C Plinius Caecilius Secundus Minor (Pliny), 61-113 (52)
Cornelius Tacitus, 61-120 (59)
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, 70-122, historian and librarian (52)
Lucius Apuleius, 124-180, preacher (56)
Aulus Gellius, 130-180, grammarian (50)
Sextus Aurelius Victor, 320-390 (70)


BY (MAIN) KIND OF WRITING

POETS

Quintus Ennius, 239-169, poet (70)
Titus Lucretius Carus, 99-55, poet (44)
Gaius Valerius Catullus, 84-54, poet (30)
Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil), 70-?, poet*
Quintus Horatius Flacco (Horace), 65-8 bC, poet (73)
Sextus Aurelianus Porpertius (Porperce), 50 bC-16 aD, poet (66)
Albius Tibullus, 50-19 bC, poet (69)
Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid), 43 bC-?, poet
Tiberius Catius Asconius Sillus Italicus, 26-101, poet (75)
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (Lucan), 39-65, poet (26)
Publius Papinius Statius, 40-95, poet (55)
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (Juvenal), 60-130, poet (70)

HISTORIANS

Marcus Porcius Cato Maior Censor, 224-147, historian (77)
Cornelius Nepos, 100- 25, historian (75)
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, 86-35, historian (32)
Titus Livius, 59 bC-17 aD, historian (76)
Cornelius Tacitus, 61-120, historian (59)
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, 70-122, historian and librarian (52)

ACTORS

Publius Terentius Afer (Terence), 190-159, writer of plays (actor?) (31)

GRAMMARIANS

Marcus Terentius Varro, 117-27, grammarian (90)
Aulus Gellius, 130-180, grammarian (50)

FABULISTS

Gaius Iulius Phaedrus, 20 bC-50 aD, writer of prose (70)

PHILOSOPHERS & PREACHERS

Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43, philosopher and preacher (63)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca Minor, 4 bC-65 aD, philosopher (69)
Aulus Persius Flaccus, 34-62, philosopher (Stoicism) (28)
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, 35-?, preacher
Lucius Apuleius, 124-180, preacher (56)

POLITITIANS

Gaius (C) Iulius Caesar, 100-44, politician (56)
C Iulius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, 63 bC-14 aD, politician, king (77)

OTHER WRITERS
(Letters, other writings)

Gaius Velleius Paterculus, 19 bC-?
Gaius Plinius Secundus Maior (Pliny), 23-69 aD (46)
Sextus Iulius Frontinus, 40-103 (63)
Marcus Valerius Martialis (Martial), 40-103 (63)
C Plinius Caecilius Secundus Minor (Pliny), 61-113 (52)
Sextus Aurelius Victor, 320-390 (70)


lq~

[librarius_qui]

(I don't live in ancient Rome, but it's almost my mother land ...)

Poetry seems to have been very pop in old Rome. On the other hand, there was, still, a tradition of telling stories through poetry, which nowadays has vanished ... I figure.

[JBI]

(I don't live in ancient Rome, but it's almost my mother land ...)

Poetry seems to have been very pop in old Rome. On the other hand, there was, still, a tradition of telling stories through poetry, which nowadays has vanished ... I figure.

Popular amongst whom? Certainly not the plebes who couldn't read. Roman poetry seems text heavy, whereas Greek poetry would seem oral heavy to me, and imply a sort of oral tradition that could transfer. The Troubadour tradition too seems an oral poetry, whereas the Enlightenment was the true beginning of a purely textual poetry. I can't envision though, the Roman poets of being very oral in deliverance - perhaps that is just me, but I think the actual musical component to Greek poetry, for instance, took it outside the realm of bourgeois pass time, into people's expression. Certainly all Bardic traditions share that quality, and in a sense, that becomes the most popular form, which generally used to have the greatest impact, but right now, I doubt you could say that - just look at the expression of Elizabeth Alexander when reading her poem - she sounded like a computer, without a connection, so that when she said, "Words, words upon a page, the have meaning" she literally sounded like a computer program reading, making a somewhat unintentional ironic slip. The actual oral component though, it would seem, has all but vanished.

Perhaps people don't read outloud anymore - which is a shame, since it's a great deal of fun. But generally, the interaction of poetry to people needs to somehow be outside the realm of text - text is limited, and therefore, poetry would unlikely be significant if it is purely text. It needs to capture a concept beyond the text, which talks, and gets an answer, and quite simply, nothing really is going to do that, unless it is staggeringly different than anything I've ever seen (in which case, I can hardly define it, can I).

[librarius_qui]

Romans did have public recitation practice. (People gathered in a public room to hear recitation.) Perhaps this is why so many poets' writings have survived, rather than historians', for example, or even religious books. (The Sibylline books have been completely lost, if I'm not mistaken ...)

[mortalterror]

Romans did have public recitation practice. (People gathered in a public room to hear recitation.) Perhaps this is why so many poets' writings have survived, rather than historians', for example, or even religious books. (The Sibylline books have been completely lost, if I'm not mistaken ...)

Quite right. It's what people did before television. They also used to recite speeches to each other, and speech making wasn't just confined to the forum or law courts as it is today. There was an entire range of public spectacle, and social interaction, which is no longer a vital part of our textual lives. I'm always charmed when I hear about how people would actually read to each other to pass a summer day. Either they'd tell each other stories as in Boccaccio's Decameron or they'd read Shakespeare to one another as Wordsworth tells us he did with his sister.

Roman poetry definitely had a highly developed oral component. I imagine it was something like the aristocratic poetry scene that Chaucer found when he recited his own poetry in public, as per this fifteenth century picture of him reading Troilus and Criseyde. It's definitely a text centric society but the author is still a performer and an entertainer.

[JBI]

Quite right. It's what people did before television. They also used to recite speeches to each other, and speech making wasn't just confined to the forum or law courts as it is today. There was an entire range of public spectacle, and social interaction, which is no longer a vital part of our textual lives. I'm always charmed when I hear about how people would actually read to each other to pass a summer day. Either they'd tell each other stories as in Boccaccio's Decameron or they'd read Shakespeare to one another as Wordsworth tells us he did with his sister.

Roman poetry definitely had a highly developed oral component. I imagine it was something like the aristocratic poetry scene that Chaucer found when he recited his own poetry in public, as per this fifteenth century picture of him reading Troilus and Criseyde. It's definitely a text centric society but the author is still a performer and an entertainer.

For Whom?

[Jozanny]

JBI writes:

The actual oral component though, it would seem, has all but vanished.

No it hasn't. I actually know Dr. Sonia Sanchez, personally. I was one of her understudies for performance poetry at Temple University, and I'll see if I can get her to come pay you a visit here to post to you about the oral chanting tradition in African American poetry.

Contemporary poetry has certainly changed its function in the modern era JBI, but it is still orally performed by any number of diverse practitioners. You need to learn to qualify these overly broad generalizations.

[JBI]

JBI writes:



No it hasn't. I actually know Dr. Sonia Sanchez, personally. I was one of her understudies for performance poetry at Temple University, and I'll see if I can get her to come pay you a visit here to post to you about the oral chanting tradition in African American poetry.

Contemporary poetry has certainly changed its function in the modern era JBI, but it is still orally performed by any number of diverse practitioners. You need to learn to qualify these overly broad generalizations.

Are you telling me those performance poets carry much weight though, culturally speaking, or have a culturally significant role? Perhaps in the mind of the practitioners and fans, but I wouldn't say they are particularly memorable - I've heard and seen enough of those readings, and I don't particularly see much more weight placed in them, as one would place on the singer in a jazz club, or some guy playing Mozart on water-filled glass in the park.

I'm not going to comment on oral chanting in African American poetry, other than question the cultural relevance of such chanting to a broad community as a whole. All this emphasis put on oral tradition within academic circles, to me, from my observance, seems largely within academic frames. One would need to question how essential such poetic chantings would be - certainly I can see a connection, between the bulk of American church music, and an oral tradition, to an extent, but to say poetic compositions, as an art form, are essential to the current populations, that they act as a structuring, time-plotted grid to me seems a stretch. I don't want to rip on a culture, don't get me wrong, but I can't help but feel skeptical about the actual significance to this time period. From my experience, most oral poetry I have come across has been momentary ranting, and meaningless polemic - nothing which truly binds a culture around it, the way, lets say, something like Beowulf captured the psychology of the Anglo-Saxon world (the history alone, within that text, is several hundred years old, implying that time ultimately did not alter much the projected esteem of the narrative, beyond a point). I don't particularly see that in African American verse (though in terms of performance, I admit that I am limited to Black Canadian poets for first hand experience). To me, that reads more like cultural nostalgia.

If we were discussing this, lets say, 15-20 years ago, I would probably agree with you, but as I see it, since about 1985 (and my date is pretty abstract, being that I didn't live through that period) everything seems to have shifted completely to text. The rise of Yuppy culture quite simply removed all oral components from everything, and the shift from records, to cassettes, then CDs, then finally digital only helped speed the process. Just look at your old VHS player if you have one - it feels strange, to go out and get one of those from the library (as god knows Blockbuster doesn't really carry them anymore) and watch it on the old box. It's almost as if you forgot about the "rewind before returning" bit.

[Jozanny]

I think you might be conflating the demise of oral tradition(s) with the rise hermeunetic textual primacy, which is valid, but still doesn't divorce poetry from oral necessity. In the late 80's I was always challenging syntax, say, in a stanza like this:

police dubious of the kidnap shopping
center broad daylight story taken by two
black men you said; no witnesses to corroborate
the correspondences
a fine line madness so small
corpuscles on a sinusoidal curve,
frantic sweep on the optic nerve, that little
mouth so fierce the frustrated screams for what,
mother’s milk to the blood of human kindness
Berlin blitzbergs
and all Europe is silent
cop is good cop/bad cop
good cop bad cop act,
send in the frog men this
chick is got the skits all right

which was published in The Black Bear Review, and comes in as one of my longer pieces, at four pages, but it also points to the flaws in my work, that my textuality is more important than oral resonance--Simon Armitage never loses oral primacy for the sake of convolution, and he is the most popular English language poet around, one whom actually impresses me, in constructions of vivid simplicity which tricks a reader into saying "wait a second, something more is going on here."

The best poetry will always have a confluence with oral tradition JBI, to echo luke summoning Eliot to defend high aesthetics...