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| Earl the Squirrel's Rule #115 |
2. With little time and no flashlight, where should we look for our lost car keys? Near the streetlamps or in the pitch darkness?
3. Is it better to do one or nine things well?
4. Do we tend to look better at home, alone, or at work, meeting and greeting the public?
5a. Where are we more likely to find an item? At a kiosk or a marketplace (which contains many kiosks of every sort)?
5b. Where will we find an article more quickly? In a book with or without an index?
6. Where would you expect to find better jumpers? From the group who can leap over a 1-foot bar or those who can clear a 3-foot hurdle?
7. Which performances tend to be better? Dress rehearsals or opening nights?
8. Who knows your tastes better? You, a friend or a stranger?
9. Many will enjoy the book rather than the movie but how many will prefer the screenplay to the film? Does your answer change if someone is reading the script to you?
10. Would you prefer a doctor who has studied anatomy or one who hasn't?
11. When you want to say something do you prefer to be heard or ignored?
Connecting the dots...
1. If there were no fans or players, such that the scorekeepers and coaches had to take the field, would you call that endeavor thriving, like film or football, or moribund, like tiddly-winks and Ollamaliztli?
Everyone understands that poetry is dead, including those who deny it due to misguided self-interest.
2. With little time and no flashlight, where should we look for our lost car keys? Near the streetlamps or in the pitch darkness?
Rather than stumble around like a blind squirrel why not look for peanuts at the ball park? Why seek on dusty, far off shelves before you look on the same Internet you're using to read this?
Baseball legend Dagoberto Campaneris Blanco played nine positions and pitched ambidextrously. Not surprisingly, he was in great demand. One trick ponies seem to think that winning a niche prize like the Nemerov will establish them as a poet. That may be so but, with very few exceptions, those who win such awards or contests are versatile. For example, none of the canonical free verse poems was written by someone who couldn't write at least competent verse. Thus, observers will, consciously or unconsciously, rightly or wrongly, assume that one who writes only prose poetry or only villanelles is not a good poet in general.
4. Do we tend to look better at home, alone, or at work, meeting and greeting the public?
So, would you expect better poetry from those writing about and for their navels (or friends, family or fellow poets) or from those presenting their work to the public?
5a. Where are we more likely to find an item? At a kiosk or a marketplace (which contains many kiosks of every sort)?
Obviously, you'd go the the market that has the more variety and, all other factors being equal, the greater competition for your money. What is more, due to their proximity, if the shop doesn't have what you want they can likely point you to a nearby provider who does. Similarly, if looking for anything--contemporary poetry, in this case--are you better off in a book store, with a few hundred titles, a library, with a few thousand, or the Internet, with a few billion?
5b. Where will we find an article more quickly? In a book with or without a quick and efficient index?
So why go with the Dewey Decimal system when you could be using a web browser?
6. Where would you expect the better jumpers? From the group whose members can leap over a 1-foot bar or from those who can clear a 3-foot hurdle¹?
In general, published work tends to be better than self-published writing, if only because the latter needs to please only the author. Similarly, poetry published in critical circles is going to be better than that produced among blurbers.
7. Which performances tend to be better? Dress rehearsals or opening nights?
Others from the theatrical community are often invited to serve as an audience at dress rehearsals. These allow the troupe to iron out any wrinkles before the big night. Only when they are ready for prime time can we expect perfection.
Similarly, the reason institutional poetry doesn't appeal to non-poets, regardless of sophistication, is that it isn't prepared--in both senses of the word--for them.
8. Who knows your tastes better? You, a friend, or stranger?
A Facebook buddy may well recommend a novel, play, television show or movie written by someone you don't know but will rarely, if ever, Share a link to a poem unless they or a close friend or relative wrote it. Strangers are more likely to be blurbers than objective reviewers. What few reviewers there are seem wedded to a failed aesthetic. Editors need to please writers, not readers (tanr). With nothing but broken filters, then, people give up on poetry. What little good stuff there is out there will be too hard to find until we can see beyond the tiny eddies² in which we are caught.
9. Many will enjoy the book rather than the movie but how many will prefer the screenplay to the film? Does your answer change if someone is reading the script to you?
The mere fact that we speak exclusively in terms of reading poetry is, paradoxically, the main reason that Nobody Reads Poetry. It's meant to be heard, if not seen. If a voice-over, it will be by competent performers who won't sound like they're reading from a script.
10. Would you prefer a doctor who has studied anatomy or one who hasn't?
If you prefer physicians familiar with human body parts why not apply the same logic in poetry? Why read poetry being written, published or blurbed by those who don't know iambs from trochees?
If you patronize healers who think "humerus" refers to the funny bone you should consider life insurance.
11. When you want to say something do you prefer to be heard or ignored?
If you prefer to be read you should write prose. If you want to be heard you're in the right church but the wrong pew. Post your finished products, not mere scripts, to YouTube.
Unavoidable Conclusions
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| Earl the Squirrel's Rule #60 |
1. it will be over the dead bodies of those in denial about its death;
2. it will be in an open, visible location (i.e. the Internet);
3. it and its producers will be multi-talented and flexible;
4. it will usually involve polished, professional-looking productions;
5. it will be easily located on an individual basis despite the oversupply;
6. the best of it will be published by discriminating editors;
7. it will, by definition, appeal to the public³;
8. it will be passed along by friends, most commonly on social media;
9. it will be performed, not read (at first, at least);
10. it will be written, published and reviewed by people who know that anaphora is not an Argentinian pop singer;
11. its words will matter, not just its storyline or moral.
One last question: "Why deny the obvious, child?"
Footnotes:
¹ - Do you know any bridgeplayers? If so, they'll love this application of The Hurdles Rule. Ask them this: "The auction goes 1C-Pass-1S-Pass. Which passing opponent is [slightly] more likely to have the King of Diamonds?"
Answer: The original passer's failure to bid while facing a much lower obstacle than the second passer suggests a weaker hand. Thus, the second passer is somewhat more likely to have any outstanding Ace or face card, including the Diamond lord.
² - ...something that doesn't present a problem in any other endeavor (e.g. film, theater, sports, fiction, television, etc.).
³ - A word which brings out the poser in many poets today.
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