The Washington Post is wrong again
I meant to add this to my last post, but got distracted by thoughts of chocolate, as you do. Anyway.
If you missed it, this may be one of the worst opinion posts published by the Washington Post, like ever, containing this particular "gem":
He has overcome numerous obstacles, struggled against opposition both internal and external - in order to excel in poetry, a field that may very well be obsolete.
I say this lovingly as a member of the print media. If poetry is dead, we are in the next ward over, wheezing noisily, with our family gathered around looking concerned and asking about our stereos.
Ok, a, who the hell asks about stereos on someone's deathbed?
Moving on, she continues,
Still I think there is a question to be asked. You can tell that a medium is still vital by posing the question: Can it change anything?
Can a poem still change anything?
I think the medium might not be loud enough any longer. There are about six people who buy new poetry, but they are not feeling very well.
This is followed by some snarky comments about MFA students, but I'll let you read that yourself.
Petri's arguments, such as they aren't, seem to boil down to, a) the inaugural poem wasn't very good (I didn't hear it and haven't read it, so I'm withholding judgement on this point), b) poems are supposed to tell us news, and now that we have the nice media doing that for us we don't need poems, c) nobody is reading poetry, d) nobody is publishing poetry, e) nobody is buying poetry. Also, apparently, Ezra Pound would have keeled over if he'd seen any recent movies. (Well, this last one is probably true, but not for the reasons Petri is suggesting, and I'll just let you all contemplate the image of Ezra Pound watching the last Transformers movie for a moment before we move on.)
Let's unpack:
1. Just possibly -- possibly -- judging the state of poetry in general from the inaugural poem is not the best way to go about doing things. To return to the classical period that Petri seems so happy and ignorant about, all sorts of people wrote all sorts of inaugural poems to celebrate the ascent of various city leaders, Senators, Emperors, prefects and so on to various positions. All of these poems are deservedly forgotten today -- with the fragments that survive showing exactly why nobody in the classical or medieval period thought they were worth keeping. We do use the fragments to get information about particular lives, but great poetry, this is not. And that's ok -- bad poetry is also part of the human experience.
2. As I've noted, back when I was in high school, poetry was difficult to find. Oh, sure, it was assigned in high school to a degree (mostly Shakespeare and a couple of other standard poets) and you could find anthologies with the same poems printed over and over, but that was about it. Poetry reading? Hi, Shakespeare.
Back in South Florida I was able to head to various bookstores and coffeeshops to hear live poetry readings. (They also exist in the Orlando area, but not in trike-accessible places, so I haven't gone.) Yes, most of these have been very earnest poems written by devout Christians, which is not my kinda stuff, but nothing wrong with that either. And you want to know why those poems were worth while? They made the poets happy, and allowed them to explore their relationship with their god and their faith. That seems important, at least to them.
Moving past the Christian poetry movement, you have the explosion of singer/songwriters, who, yes, are writing poetry -- Petri, wrongly telling us that all poetry used to be set to music, should have noticed this. You have rap music which I can't stand but which is doing all kinds of fun things with language and, yes, telling news and telling stories.
And then you have the internet, with its explosion of poetry journals of all sorts, not to mention the possibilities for publishing poetry on a blog, or through a little ebook, or more. You have YouTube which allows people to share their poetry performances with the world. Poetry is not just what I like, or what Ms. Petri likes: it's larger than that.
Poetry dead? Poetry, Ms. Petri, is exploding. It's one of the the things that gives me a bit of hope to cling to in the world. It might not be making earth shattering changes, but it provides moments of beauty and hope. And that is a reason to keep it.
(And honestly, for any member of the media, and more specifically the Washington Post, to be dinging any other part of society for not telling the news right now...are you kidding me?)
If you missed it, this may be one of the worst opinion posts published by the Washington Post, like ever, containing this particular "gem":
He has overcome numerous obstacles, struggled against opposition both internal and external - in order to excel in poetry, a field that may very well be obsolete.
I say this lovingly as a member of the print media. If poetry is dead, we are in the next ward over, wheezing noisily, with our family gathered around looking concerned and asking about our stereos.
Ok, a, who the hell asks about stereos on someone's deathbed?
Moving on, she continues,
Still I think there is a question to be asked. You can tell that a medium is still vital by posing the question: Can it change anything?
Can a poem still change anything?
I think the medium might not be loud enough any longer. There are about six people who buy new poetry, but they are not feeling very well.
This is followed by some snarky comments about MFA students, but I'll let you read that yourself.
Petri's arguments, such as they aren't, seem to boil down to, a) the inaugural poem wasn't very good (I didn't hear it and haven't read it, so I'm withholding judgement on this point), b) poems are supposed to tell us news, and now that we have the nice media doing that for us we don't need poems, c) nobody is reading poetry, d) nobody is publishing poetry, e) nobody is buying poetry. Also, apparently, Ezra Pound would have keeled over if he'd seen any recent movies. (Well, this last one is probably true, but not for the reasons Petri is suggesting, and I'll just let you all contemplate the image of Ezra Pound watching the last Transformers movie for a moment before we move on.)
Let's unpack:
1. Just possibly -- possibly -- judging the state of poetry in general from the inaugural poem is not the best way to go about doing things. To return to the classical period that Petri seems so happy and ignorant about, all sorts of people wrote all sorts of inaugural poems to celebrate the ascent of various city leaders, Senators, Emperors, prefects and so on to various positions. All of these poems are deservedly forgotten today -- with the fragments that survive showing exactly why nobody in the classical or medieval period thought they were worth keeping. We do use the fragments to get information about particular lives, but great poetry, this is not. And that's ok -- bad poetry is also part of the human experience.
2. As I've noted, back when I was in high school, poetry was difficult to find. Oh, sure, it was assigned in high school to a degree (mostly Shakespeare and a couple of other standard poets) and you could find anthologies with the same poems printed over and over, but that was about it. Poetry reading? Hi, Shakespeare.
Back in South Florida I was able to head to various bookstores and coffeeshops to hear live poetry readings. (They also exist in the Orlando area, but not in trike-accessible places, so I haven't gone.) Yes, most of these have been very earnest poems written by devout Christians, which is not my kinda stuff, but nothing wrong with that either. And you want to know why those poems were worth while? They made the poets happy, and allowed them to explore their relationship with their god and their faith. That seems important, at least to them.
Moving past the Christian poetry movement, you have the explosion of singer/songwriters, who, yes, are writing poetry -- Petri, wrongly telling us that all poetry used to be set to music, should have noticed this. You have rap music which I can't stand but which is doing all kinds of fun things with language and, yes, telling news and telling stories.
And then you have the internet, with its explosion of poetry journals of all sorts, not to mention the possibilities for publishing poetry on a blog, or through a little ebook, or more. You have YouTube which allows people to share their poetry performances with the world. Poetry is not just what I like, or what Ms. Petri likes: it's larger than that.
Poetry dead? Poetry, Ms. Petri, is exploding. It's one of the the things that gives me a bit of hope to cling to in the world. It might not be making earth shattering changes, but it provides moments of beauty and hope. And that is a reason to keep it.
(And honestly, for any member of the media, and more specifically the Washington Post, to be dinging any other part of society for not telling the news right now...are you kidding me?)