A Surprising Similarity Between Neko Case and Britney Speares:
Or,
How Poetry Magazine Creates A Commodity in the Gift Economy
Anyone who has waited in the check out at Piggly Wiggly is familiar with the images on the covers of People Magazine or Us Weekly featuring a shoeless Britney Speares, gassing up her behemoth Ranger Rover, throwing back an ice cold Pepsi. When Britney started hocking Pepsi to the masses by dancing in 2001’s Pepsi add campaign, it just seemed so right. Britney likes Pepsi, and so should you, Amen.
Essentially, the November 2007 issue of poetry uses Neko Case in a celebrity add campaign. When I first got my copy of the magazine, which says on the cover “featuring Neko Case,” I thought to myself, “Whoa, I didn’t know she wrote poetry too. As a big fan of her solo music and her band The New Pornographers, I am thrilled.” (Side note: another indie rocker poet, David Berman from the Silver Jews, published the excellent collection of poems Actual Air). I tore open the shrink-wrap and flipped to Neko Case’s contribution, which turns out to be, not original poetry, but a two-page essay about why she, Neko Case, likes poetry.
Hmmm.
The danger is that this essay could turn out little solipsistic, no? Here’s a detailed play by play of her essay:
1. Neko thinks poetry is intimidating because it can be hard to understand.
2. Shakespeare “haunts” her.
3. W.H. Auden is also “haunting.”
3. Lynda Barry and Sherman Alexie both write about Washington state.
4. Poetry that is scary or sad can also be redeeming.
5. Some song lyrics are kind of poetic.
Yeah. It definitely fell RIGHT INTO that ol’ solipsism pothole. I can’t say I learned anything new from reading what she wrote, other than that Neko Case likes poetry.
Then I realized, maybe that’s all I am supposed to learn. Neko Case’s essay, devoid of real substance, is really just an advertisement for poetry. The message: Neko likes poetry. The implied message: Read poems and you’ll become a soulful, Indie-rock heroine, just like her. Just as Britney, who really does enjoy Pepsi, shook her bootay for the cause, Neko Case, who really does like poems, is showing her goods to get us to buy.
And is that so wrong? Neko Case using her celebrity status to make someone pick up a copy of Poetry Magazine-what could be the harm?
In fact, Poetry Magazine is opening up one gnarly can of worms with this whole Neko Case shiznaz. Celebrity sponsorship is a packaging. It’s an advertisement. It transforms a thing into a commodity. As scholars are want to point out, poetry (along with many other forms of art) exists in a gift economy, an economy where the award for giving is intangible. A book of poetry costs money, so, more correctly, there is a hybridization of the gift and commodity economies. But poetry exists primarily in the gift economy because poets consider the most important award for their work to be the gratitude of the recipient and the bond that results between giver and receiver. Money the book earns (a few hundred dollars?) is of secondary and much lesser concern. Advertisement is a thrust away from the gift economy into the commodity economy.
Poetry Magazine wants to bring poetry to the people (or the people to poetry). They’re clear about this goal. Their mission statement on poetry.org reads: “to celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.” I guess that the stint with Neko Case was meant to be a part of this popularization effort. But celebrity advertising is not just popularization-it’s also commoditization.
There are benefits to commoditization, like the possibility of a larger audience or of more money for poets. A danger of such a shift is that poetry falls under market influences and creativity is severely constricted.
Constricting creativity? That’s like stabbing poetry right in the heart.
- What do you think about the Neko Case essay and celebrity sponsored art?
- Up next week: “Go blurb yourself, asshole!” Alternative title: Jason Brendle blurbs himself on the back of his debut collection Pain Fantasy. Hilarity ensues (with a little help from Josh Bell).
How Poetry Magazine Creates A Commodity in the Gift Economy
Anyone who has waited in the check out at Piggly Wiggly is familiar with the images on the covers of People Magazine or Us Weekly featuring a shoeless Britney Speares, gassing up her behemoth Ranger Rover, throwing back an ice cold Pepsi. When Britney started hocking Pepsi to the masses by dancing in 2001’s Pepsi add campaign, it just seemed so right. Britney likes Pepsi, and so should you, Amen.
Essentially, the November 2007 issue of poetry uses Neko Case in a celebrity add campaign. When I first got my copy of the magazine, which says on the cover “featuring Neko Case,” I thought to myself, “Whoa, I didn’t know she wrote poetry too. As a big fan of her solo music and her band The New Pornographers, I am thrilled.” (Side note: another indie rocker poet, David Berman from the Silver Jews, published the excellent collection of poems Actual Air). I tore open the shrink-wrap and flipped to Neko Case’s contribution, which turns out to be, not original poetry, but a two-page essay about why she, Neko Case, likes poetry.
Hmmm.
The danger is that this essay could turn out little solipsistic, no? Here’s a detailed play by play of her essay:
1. Neko thinks poetry is intimidating because it can be hard to understand.
2. Shakespeare “haunts” her.
3. W.H. Auden is also “haunting.”
3. Lynda Barry and Sherman Alexie both write about Washington state.
4. Poetry that is scary or sad can also be redeeming.
5. Some song lyrics are kind of poetic.
Yeah. It definitely fell RIGHT INTO that ol’ solipsism pothole. I can’t say I learned anything new from reading what she wrote, other than that Neko Case likes poetry.
Then I realized, maybe that’s all I am supposed to learn. Neko Case’s essay, devoid of real substance, is really just an advertisement for poetry. The message: Neko likes poetry. The implied message: Read poems and you’ll become a soulful, Indie-rock heroine, just like her. Just as Britney, who really does enjoy Pepsi, shook her bootay for the cause, Neko Case, who really does like poems, is showing her goods to get us to buy.
And is that so wrong? Neko Case using her celebrity status to make someone pick up a copy of Poetry Magazine-what could be the harm?
In fact, Poetry Magazine is opening up one gnarly can of worms with this whole Neko Case shiznaz. Celebrity sponsorship is a packaging. It’s an advertisement. It transforms a thing into a commodity. As scholars are want to point out, poetry (along with many other forms of art) exists in a gift economy, an economy where the award for giving is intangible. A book of poetry costs money, so, more correctly, there is a hybridization of the gift and commodity economies. But poetry exists primarily in the gift economy because poets consider the most important award for their work to be the gratitude of the recipient and the bond that results between giver and receiver. Money the book earns (a few hundred dollars?) is of secondary and much lesser concern. Advertisement is a thrust away from the gift economy into the commodity economy.
Poetry Magazine wants to bring poetry to the people (or the people to poetry). They’re clear about this goal. Their mission statement on poetry.org reads: “to celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.” I guess that the stint with Neko Case was meant to be a part of this popularization effort. But celebrity advertising is not just popularization-it’s also commoditization.
There are benefits to commoditization, like the possibility of a larger audience or of more money for poets. A danger of such a shift is that poetry falls under market influences and creativity is severely constricted.
Constricting creativity? That’s like stabbing poetry right in the heart.
- What do you think about the Neko Case essay and celebrity sponsored art?
- Up next week: “Go blurb yourself, asshole!” Alternative title: Jason Brendle blurbs himself on the back of his debut collection Pain Fantasy. Hilarity ensues (with a little help from Josh Bell).