Poetry and the Masses

[Truerenigma]

Collins seems to have had a bit of a thing for demystifying poetry -- but I tend to feel he went too far with that, and ended up dumbing it way down. You don't have to beat your audience over the head with a meaning, you don't have to use blatantly obvious metaphors and it doesn't matter if the reader doesn't get it first go.

He might not have meant this, but that seems to be where people have taken it.

I can't get into his poems either, perhaps because there's not much to get "in" to. One quick read seems to do the trick. (Although I do enjoyed the humor in the closing couplet of "Introduction to Poetry".--it's more like "light" toilet reading though, than the type of poetry I'm into.)


Lately, if it isn't metered, with subtle, or even blatant, metrical variation to scan and study how they've worked so well for a particular poem, I have a lot of difficulty holding my interest in the poem past one or two reads. Lately I've been dissecting Robert Browning's "My last duchess", picking through "Paradise Lost" for the millionth time, this time targeting Milton's eliding anapests, and going over all those pyrrhics and "falling lines" in William Butler Yeats's "The Second Coming" that are deceptively iambic.

I guess it just depends on where you're at, and what interests you.

[Leanne]

I must get back into Browning -- I know I should really like him but I had this professor at uni who went on and on and on and I think he died in advance just to avoid having to listen to her dissecting his poems. I used "Porphyria's Lover" in class last year because I have students who like gory stuff, and being strangled with your own hair fits into that nicely. Plus, there are those wonderfully allegorical layers.

I have much and more adore for both Milton and Yeats, despite (or perhaps because of) their being out of favour with that irritating portion of contemporary academia. For some reason, thinking of "The Second Coming" always takes me to Shelley's "Ozymandias", and I don't know if Bill and Percy would be happy to share that bed, but then they have no say in it really.

But for tricks and nifty things with meter, I still recommend Larkin. He was so good with it that it often looks like he paid it no mind at all, until you really start to read it aloud and appreciate the wonderful sonics.

[milo]

I must get back into Browning -- I know I should really like him but I had this professor at uni who went on and on and on and I think he died in advance just to avoid having to listen to her dissecting his poems. I used "Porphyria's Lover" in class last year because I have students who like gory stuff, and being strangled with your own hair fits into that nicely. Plus, there are those wonderfully allegorical layers.

I have much and more adore for both Milton and Yeats, despite (or perhaps because of) their being out of favour with that irritating portion of contemporary academia. For some reason, thinking of "The Second Coming" always takes me to Shelley's "Ozymandias", and I don't know if Bill and Percy would be happy to share that bed, but then they have no say in it really.

But for tricks and nifty things with meter, I still recommend Larkin. He was so good with it that it often looks like he paid it no mind at all, until you really start to read it aloud and appreciate the wonderful sonics.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173004

of course the sentences are so fucking long that I run out of breath but it is probably my favourite. I did an audio somewhere.

[Truerenigma]

I must get back into Browning -- I know I should really like him but I had this professor at uni who went on and on and on and I think he died in advance just to avoid having to listen to her dissecting his poems. I used "Porphyria's Lover" in class last year because I have students who like gory stuff, and being strangled with your own hair fits into that nicely. Plus, there are those wonderfully allegorical layers.

I have much and more adore for both Milton and Yeats, despite (or perhaps because of) their being out of favour with that irritating portion of contemporary academia. For some reason, thinking of "The Second Coming" always takes me to Shelley's "Ozymandias", and I don't know if Bill and Percy would be happy to share that bed, but then they have no say in it really.

But for tricks and nifty things with meter, I still recommend Larkin. He was so good with it that it often looks like he paid it no mind at all, until you really start to read it aloud and appreciate the wonderful sonics.

Larkin does indeed have a nice touch Leanne, and you're right: I enjoy his works for other reason, but never even noticed that--thanks for pointing it out, I'll have to add him to my study.

---

I must get back into Browning -- I know I should really like him but I had this professor at uni who went on and on and on and I think he died in advance just to avoid having to listen to her dissecting his poems. I used "Porphyria's Lover" in class last year because I have students who like gory stuff, and being strangled with your own hair fits into that nicely. Plus, there are those wonderfully allegorical layers.

I have much and more adore for both Milton and Yeats, despite (or perhaps because of) their being out of favour with that irritating portion of contemporary academia. For some reason, thinking of "The Second Coming" always takes me to Shelley's "Ozymandias", and I don't know if Bill and Percy would be happy to share that bed, but then they have no say in it really.

But for tricks and nifty things with meter, I still recommend Larkin. He was so good with it that it often looks like he paid it no mind at all, until you really start to read it aloud and appreciate the wonderful sonics.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173004

of course the sentences are so fucking long that I run out of breath but it is probably my favourite. I did an audio somewhere.

Long sentences are an understatement: some are ten to twelve plus lines, and one longer than a sonnet! It is a great poem though. No audio at "Poetry". Is your audio here in the downloadable section?

[rowens]

Who are some living poets that come as close to being interesting and good as all these dead people? Billy Collins isn't dead but he might as well be.

[milo]

I must get back into Browning -- I know I should really like him but I had this professor at uni who went on and on and on and I think he died in advance just to avoid having to listen to her dissecting his poems. I used "Porphyria's Lover" in class last year because I have students who like gory stuff, and being strangled with your own hair fits into that nicely. Plus, there are those wonderfully allegorical layers.

I have much and more adore for both Milton and Yeats, despite (or perhaps because of) their being out of favour with that irritating portion of contemporary academia. For some reason, thinking of "The Second Coming" always takes me to Shelley's "Ozymandias", and I don't know if Bill and Percy would be happy to share that bed, but then they have no say in it really.

But for tricks and nifty things with meter, I still recommend Larkin. He was so good with it that it often looks like he paid it no mind at all, until you really start to read it aloud and appreciate the wonderful sonics.

Larkin does indeed have a nice touch Leanne, and you're right: I enjoy his works for other reason, but never even noticed that--thanks for pointing it out, I'll have to add him to my study.

---

I must get back into Browning -- I know I should really like him but I had this professor at uni who went on and on and on and I think he died in advance just to avoid having to listen to her dissecting his poems. I used "Porphyria's Lover" in class last year because I have students who like gory stuff, and being strangled with your own hair fits into that nicely. Plus, there are those wonderfully allegorical layers.

I have much and more adore for both Milton and Yeats, despite (or perhaps because of) their being out of favour with that irritating portion of contemporary academia. For some reason, thinking of "The Second Coming" always takes me to Shelley's "Ozymandias", and I don't know if Bill and Percy would be happy to share that bed, but then they have no say in it really.

But for tricks and nifty things with meter, I still recommend Larkin. He was so good with it that it often looks like he paid it no mind at all, until you really start to read it aloud and appreciate the wonderful sonics.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173004

of course the sentences are so fucking long that I run out of breath but it is probably my favourite. I did an audio somewhere.

Long sentences are an understatement: some are ten to twelve plus lines, and one longer than a sonnet! It is a great poem though. No audio at "Poetry". Is your audio here in the downloadable section?

Looks like I never sent billy the browning links. I think I only completed 4 or 5 before I moved and I wanted at least 9 or 10.

[Leanne]

Who are some living poets that come as close to being interesting and good as all these dead people? Billy Collins isn't dead but he might as well be.

I know the Australian poets best. I love John Kinsella and Les Murray -- both have very strong foundations in the classics and mechanics of poetry but go off in their own directions. I also adored Dorothy Porter, but she died a few years ago -- she was only in her 50s so I'm going to count her. Over in Britain, I do quite like Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. There is an English poet called Matthew Caley who was quite active a few years back but I haven't seen much from him recently. In the US -- well, I don't know. Sadly, those who are being published in the larger presses are all a bit crap in my opinion, very generic, still stuck in the confessional that the rest of the world vacated 25 years ago or more. Most of those I'm familiar with are performance poets like Taylor Mali and of course the great Henry Rollins -- but their stuff doesn't really hold up as well on a page.

[clemonz]

Who are some living poets that come as close to being interesting and good as all these dead people? Billy Collins isn't dead but he might as well be.

john ashbery is oft' considered among the best.
i've been recommended anne carlson by a few people.
seamus heaney is a good poet, but reading him at school put me off poetry for quite some time.

does anyone read the L = A = N = G = U = A = G = E poets, that may be relevant contemporary verse, even if there's no great poets involved.

?

[Leanne]

Seamus died

Very selfish of him, of course.

[clemonz]

i think seamus was a great talent, and i don't mind the pastoral (is this the right term?) etc. themes, but perhaps he was just playful / serious about the wrong things for me to take to him. i could give a couple of examples, but it's p superfluous really

[Leanne]

Heaney's great strength for me was in the breadth and depth of his knowledge. No subject was sacred. Nothing was above ridicule, and nothing was beneath appreciation. He drew upon the past to illuminate the present, like in Beacons at Bealtaine:



Beacons at Bealtaine
Phoenix Park, May Day, 2004

Uisce: water. And fionn: the water's clear.
But dip and find this Gaelic water Greek:
A phoenix flames upon fionn uisce here.

Strangers were barbaroi to the Greek ear.
Now let the heirs of all who could not speak
The language, whose ba-babbling was unclear,

Come with their gift of tongues past each frontier
And find the answering voices that they seek
As fionn and uisce answer phoenix here.

The May Day hills were burning, far and near,
When our land's first footers beached boats in the creek
In uisce, fionn, strange words that soon grew clear;

So on a day when newcomers appear
Let it be a homecoming and let us speak
The unstrange word, as it behoves us here,

Move lips, move minds and make new meanings flare
Like ancient beacons signalling, peak to peak,
From middle sea to north sea, shining clear
As phoenix flame upon fionn uisce here.


Heaney riffs on some of the Gaelic bardic techniques -- the importance of alliteration, the dunadh (although he doesn't use it as a true start/finish pair, but embeds it a little bit) and of course the rhyme. I expect this poem would appeal to a fairly wide audience just on surface reading as it sounds lovely, but it has even greater value when you can recognise the technical skill involved in putting it together and still keeping it relevant.

[Blake]

I'll apologize in advance for not getting up to speed with all 5 pages of posts before responding (I'm at work so not enough time to read all). But as I've been made to understand poetry unfortunately isnt for the masses. Its a sad fact that the average person doesnt care about poetry and I think I agree with what Todd said in the original post that if making it more accessible to a mainstream audience means watering it down then I'd rather it stay underground.

I think most of the poetry that the masses could enjoy and/or identify with is typically labeled as doggerel. And personally I enjoy most of this stuff. I recently bought a childrens book I think it was called "Who Says Moo". It would probably be deemed doggerel, but it was so simple and interesting with it's rhymes I thought it was brilliant. I'm no authority on the subject but the masses may need baby steps. Let them start with some WELL-constructed light verse and graduate into things more complex.

Well thats my 2-cents

[Leanne]

Agreed. There is nothing wrong with comic verse -- as long as it's well-constructed. Spike Milligan, Pam Ayres, Marriott Edgar -- all wonderful. Even Rudyard Kipling wrote (arguably) better comic verse than serious. And Dorothy Parker -- silly verses for grownups

[rowens]

On tv and radio recently, I've heard four segments on poetry related things that were at least ten minutes long. Three were about Amiri Baraka because he died, but were based on his political affiliations. Though there were several recordings played of him reading poetry. Some people here might not consider what he was reading poetry. The other was about Alan Kaufman, but was based on him being Jewish in relation to the Holocaust and a former alcoholic. A bunch of sappy stuff. But that's what you get from PBS and public radio.

[clemonz]

baraka - i thought he was pretty amazing. i haven't read like lots of his work, but he changed how i read poetry

[rowens]

He had an exciting persona. A lot of American poetry that deals with politics and race and things like that sound exciting out loud.

[DonMar]

Exactly, Leanne. For me, Heaney's appeal was beautifully summed up in an article in the NY Times about the poet's work. [The italics are mine.]

"His style, linguistically dazzling, was nonetheless lacking in the obscurity that can attend poetic pyrotechnics.

At its best, Mr. Heaney’s work had both a meditative lyricism and an airy velocity. His lines could embody a dark, marshy melancholy, but as often as not they also communicated the wild onrushing joy of being alive.

The result — work that was finely wrought yet notably straightforward — made Mr. Heaney one of the most widely read poets in the world."

Donna

Heaney's great strength for me was in the breadth and depth of his knowledge. No subject was sacred. Nothing was above ridicule, and nothing was beneath appreciation. He drew upon the past to illuminate the present, like in Beacons at Bealtaine:

[Truerenigma]

Who are some living poets that come as close to being interesting and good as all these dead people? Billy Collins isn't dead but he might as well be.

I know the Australian poets best. I love John Kinsella and Les Murray -- both have very strong foundations in the classics and mechanics of poetry but go off in their own directions. I also adored Dorothy Porter, but she died a few years ago -- she was only in her 50s so I'm going to count her. Over in Britain, I do quite like Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. There is an English poet called Matthew Caley who was quite active a few years back but I haven't seen much from him recently. In the US -- well, I don't know. Sadly, those who are being published in the larger presses are all a bit crap in my opinion, very generic, still stuck in the confessional that the rest of the world vacated 25 years ago or more. Most of those I'm familiar with are performance poets like Taylor Mali and of course the great Henry Rollins -- but their stuff doesn't really hold up as well on a page.

Rhina P. Espaillat is probably my favorite right now.

---

Who are some living poets that come as close to being interesting and good as all these dead people? Billy Collins isn't dead but he might as well be.

john ashbery is oft' considered among the best.
i've been recommended anne carlson by a few people.
seamus heaney is a good poet, but reading him at school put me off poetry for quite some time.

does anyone read the L = A = N = G = U = A = G = E poets, that may be relevant contemporary verse, even if there's no great poets involved.

?

Read them all. Had to force myself to study their work. Found nothing of value. Can't stand them.

[clemonz]

Who are some living poets that come as close to being interesting and good as all these dead people? Billy Collins isn't dead but he might as well be.

I know the Australian poets best. I love John Kinsella and Les Murray -- both have very strong foundations in the classics and mechanics of poetry but go off in their own directions. I also adored Dorothy Porter, but she died a few years ago -- she was only in her 50s so I'm going to count her. Over in Britain, I do quite like Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. There is an English poet called Matthew Caley who was quite active a few years back but I haven't seen much from him recently. In the US -- well, I don't know. Sadly, those who are being published in the larger presses are all a bit crap in my opinion, very generic, still stuck in the confessional that the rest of the world vacated 25 years ago or more. Most of those I'm familiar with are performance poets like Taylor Mali and of course the great Henry Rollins -- but their stuff doesn't really hold up as well on a page.

Rhina P. Espaillat is probably my favorite right now.

---

Who are some living poets that come as close to being interesting and good as all these dead people? Billy Collins isn't dead but he might as well be.

john ashbery is oft' considered among the best.
i've been recommended anne carlson by a few people.
seamus heaney is a good poet, but reading him at school put me off poetry for quite some time.

does anyone read the L = A = N = G = U = A = G = E poets, that may be relevant contemporary verse, even if there's no great poets involved.

?

Read them all. Had to force myself to study their work. Found nothing of value. Can't stand them.

that's interesting - why do you say that?

my favourite writers are the academically esteemed ones - pound, eliot, stevens, williams, crane, etc.. i don't know if it's just a phase cos i'm new to poetry, or i'm a snob, or what.

[milo]

Who are some living poets that come as close to being interesting and good as all these dead people? Billy Collins isn't dead but he might as well be.

This question always inevitably comes up. I think people equate being interesting or good to being famous or well known. My favourite poets always seem to end up being people I get to know. Maybe i become biased, it is hard to say.

Dale Houstman
Peter J. Ross
Julie Carter
Aidan Tynan
Jim Sheard
Martijn Benders
Colin Ward
Rik roots
George Tolis
Ted Dage
J. Rinier
Tiniap (Kei Miller)
Dennis Hammes
Zinc (actually do not know this guy's name)
Gnarl (Glenn)

recent addition:
Leanne Hanson

I have favourite poems that I keep and treasure from every one of them. Kei (it seems) was recently invited to Buckingham palace by the queen:

http://commercialpoetry.blogspot.ca/2013...iniap.html

(I actually had an email prose workshop with him, myself and George Tolis)

So you never know, there may be hope yet.