Further thoughts...
I had a couple of responses to my post on poetry that made me think. I just wanted to say I appreciated them, but unfortunately, know very little about poetry and don't have much of a response to them except, "Thanks."
I will say I go back and forth on worrying about how coarse and flippant our culture has become, to the point where I suspect a number of young people are more familiar with the parodies of things than they are with the real thing. That is, the satire about religion and culture emanating from things like Family Guy and the Simpsons may actually be more familiar than the actual thing they might reference. Everything has to be a joke, be 'ironic' and deconstructed. The whole world becomes one big joke. Serious study and ambition is seen as elitist.
On the other hand, as another poster indicated, keeping things locked away in some inaccessable intelligensia is the stuff that regulates your field to the fringes.
I hope I'm making sense, but how does one keep something like poetry, or anything else that transcends fast food culture accessable to the larger audience, while resisting the urge to dumb things down?
Anyways, my old high school won their basketball sectional, and I'm really happy about that!
I will say I go back and forth on worrying about how coarse and flippant our culture has become, to the point where I suspect a number of young people are more familiar with the parodies of things than they are with the real thing. That is, the satire about religion and culture emanating from things like Family Guy and the Simpsons may actually be more familiar than the actual thing they might reference. Everything has to be a joke, be 'ironic' and deconstructed. The whole world becomes one big joke. Serious study and ambition is seen as elitist.
On the other hand, as another poster indicated, keeping things locked away in some inaccessable intelligensia is the stuff that regulates your field to the fringes.
I hope I'm making sense, but how does one keep something like poetry, or anything else that transcends fast food culture accessable to the larger audience, while resisting the urge to dumb things down?
Anyways, my old high school won their basketball sectional, and I'm really happy about that!