01-18-2014, 11:34 AM
It's in all our nature's to crave simple answers. Confronting what we don't and can never hope to understand is a daunting, sometimes terrifying experience. Layers of social and psychological structures have been created to insulate us from those very thoughts.
The arts (and sciences to a degree nowadays) are often direct conflict with those structures and suffer as a result. Poetry in particular is a victim of that conflict because while I have no choice but to visually experience a painting presented to me, poetry demands a higher level of my engagement.
For me, bringing poetry to wider audiences is not a question of adapting the craft. The idea of "dumbing down" an art form that has been with us since shortly after we spoke is abhorrent and down right devolutionary. We should instead seek to affect people's expectations, to impart the idea that the longer and more arduous the search for meaning the greater the reward, that succinct, digestible answers are not the panacea.
Turn off the telly,
Get off the couch.
The arts (and sciences to a degree nowadays) are often direct conflict with those structures and suffer as a result. Poetry in particular is a victim of that conflict because while I have no choice but to visually experience a painting presented to me, poetry demands a higher level of my engagement.
For me, bringing poetry to wider audiences is not a question of adapting the craft. The idea of "dumbing down" an art form that has been with us since shortly after we spoke is abhorrent and down right devolutionary. We should instead seek to affect people's expectations, to impart the idea that the longer and more arduous the search for meaning the greater the reward, that succinct, digestible answers are not the panacea.
Turn off the telly,
Get off the couch.