Has Social Media Been Good For Poetry?

"...most 'poets' are stupid and lazy. Not only do they take shortcuts, but they get lost doing it."

- Zachariah Wells on the Vox Populism blog, 2009-12-7

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Earl the Squirrel's Rule #7

Blogger Carmine Starnino¹ asks "Has Social Media Been Good For Poetry?" and David McGimpsey answers:

"My anecdotal psychological insight into this is that Facebook and social media has made younger people generally better poets than they used to be, and the reason why is that now it becomes a thing that people just know how to do² without being told how to do it: How to materialize the self."

Respondent B. Glen Rotchin challenges such narcissism effectively with this riposte: "Poetry is the materialization of the self? A projection of a better you? So a poem is just another kind of Selfie?"

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #169

 Unfortunately, Mr. Rotchin commits a similar synecdochical fallacy in continuing: "Silly me, I always thought it had more to do with truth-telling."

In fact, most poetry is fictional[ized]. Altogether now:

"Poetry is a mode of speech."

Having dispensed with the Content Regents, the larger question remains:

Has Social Media Been Good For Poetry?

The simple answer is "Not yet, obviously."  Social media "promotes" everything--everything from poetry to needlepoint to zamba, each at the expense of everything else, resulting in little or no significant, long term engagement in any particular activity other than social media itself.

The question becomes:

Will Social Media Be Good For Poetry?

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #69

We are talking about an opportunity unseen since the primordial campfire: appeal to the entire tribe. Via the Internet, the performance or text can reach every anglophone on the planet. In recent centuries publishers have filtered access, ideally based on quality but all too often affected by pre-existing influence. Today, more than ever, people are left to make their own decisions. What few reviews there are might be ignored as blurbs.

"But there are no filters," some might argue, "to strain out the diarists (like David McGimpsey), 'truth-tellers' (like Mr. Rotchen) and others with no concept of technique or audience.  Social media usually includes no publishers, no editors, no reviewers, no critics."

"No filters?"  If anything, there may be too many filters. The only way that a piece is going to "go viral" and reach a significant portion of the public is if strangers--each of them a filter--Share or Retweet it. Think about your own experience:  How often do non-poets pass on contemporary verses? Memes? Sure. Kittens and puppies?  Hell, yes. But poems?

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #93

With good reason, pundits, along with this squirrel, bemoan the proliferation of mindless distractions (e.g. reality television, pseudo-celebrity gossip, video games, Taylor Swift), the catastrophic drop in standards and education, all leading to the inevitable result: Nobody Reads Poetry. Zero successes in 50+ years is an abysmal record, unprecedented in human history. Parenthetically, paradoxically and, above all, perversely, inattention may actually help poetry's cause now.  Think in terms of the Slingshot Effect.

To wit, this isn't like a poetry 'zine pumping out their top submissions or a contest with a guaranteed winner; the best of a bad lot will not suffice. Only an entertaining³ YouTube video--no, text will not do the job--of a brilliantly written and performed poem will be passed along by enough Facebookers or Retweeters. In theory, at least, the fact that the public has rarely seen the competent, let alone the good, means that the uniquely great could stand out and excite them enough to show their friends.

The chain reaction begins.

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Footnotes:

¹ - If this name seems familiar, Carmine Starnino was the one who lost the "Poetry Cage Match" to Christian Bök so badly that web sites have politely removed the video.

I found it interesting that, by Zachariah Wells' count, six metrical pieces--none of them causing a ripple--in four entire volumes is enough to qualify someone not only as a "formalist" but as a champion of that aesthetic.  Mr. Starnino is a fine teacher and a thought-provoking blogger but I don't see him claiming to be a technician or a debater.

² - This is the dumbest statement ever made.

³ - If it helps, think of "entertaining" in the broadest possible sense.

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20 Minutes that Can Change a Poet's Life

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"I always joke with my students that, if poetry was as hard as you think it is, poets wouldn’t do it because poets are among the stupidest and laziest people I know."

- Christian Bök in "The Cage Match of Canadian Poetry"

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Let's revisit an old theme with a tiny test, shall we?


1. T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is:

• Free verse.
• Metrical.
• Someone told me it was free verse but I wouldn't know on my own.
• Someone told me it was metrical but I wouldn't know on my own.
• Other/unknown.

2. William Blake's "Tyger, Tyger" is:

• Trochaic tetrameter.
• Iambic tetrameter.
• Someone told me it was trochaic tetrameter but I wouldn't know on my own.
• Someone told me it was iambic tetrameter but I wouldn't know on my own.
• Other/unknown.

3. Elizabeth Bishop's "Sonnet (1979)" is:

• Free verse.
• Accentual meter.
• Accentual-syllabic meter.
• I've been told it's free verse but I wouldn't know on my own.
• I've been told it's accentual meter but I wouldn't know on my own.
• I've been told it's accentual-syllabic meter but I wouldn't know on my own.
• Other/unknown.

If you got these three simple questions right on your own then, unlike more than 70% of PhD holders, more than 80% of MFA graduates and almost 97% of total poets (with or without degrees) tested, you understand the rudiments of scansion. You can probably recognize meter within three lines, know why some poets' popularity rises or falls in inverse relation to the public's ear for scansion, and prefer root canals to most poetry readings. You don't need to be told the distinction between verse and free verse or between free verse and prose poetry; your refined ear detects the difference immediately. Nor do you need to be told whether or not free verse poems are written by someone who understands verse; that, too, is usually obvious. You likely find the PoBiz, the blogosphere, and Content Regents unbearable. You couldn't write as badly as Lawrence Ferlinghetti or Carol Ann Duffy if your life depended on it.

"Why," a neophyte might ask, "should I learn about scansion? I write free verse!"

No, you don't. In fact, you'll win two lotteries before you write your first free verse poem. A "poet" with no grasp of meter is like a doctor who doesn't know what blood is.

"But I'm a dermatologist!"

Not mine, certainly.

If you are among the vast majority of poets who didn't ace this test or aren't entirely sure about the answers I have some wonderful news for you. There is a site where, 20 minutes from now, you will comprehend scansion better than the authors of at least two well known technical manuals and better than some famous poets, including Edgar Allan Poe. Here's the kicker: this lesson can be encapsulated in a grand total of eight words--five, if you don't mind an acronym! (The rest of the treatise involves supporting examples, jargon and explanations.)

I have one caveat, though: do not try the tests at the end yet. Practice your skills for a year or so before attempting the easier quiz, a decade or so before the tougher one.

The site is called "How to Scan a Poem".

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P.S.: The correct answer to all three questions was the second one.

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Convenient Poetics

  "Poets...are...the laziest, stupidest people I know."
- Christian Bök - Kelly Writers House, UPenn, November 18, 2009

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Convenient Poetics ("ConPo") is now the dominant force in English language poetry, eclipsing even Content Regency. Advocates of Convenient Poetics, known as "ConPoets", embrace their philosophy with the pious dedication of living martyrs. ConPo tenets include:


1. That which we do not understand cannot be important.

"I don't need to learn about scansion. I write free verse!"

2. There is no such thing as bad poetry.

"The 'Tay Bridge Disaster' isn't poetry; it's doggerel!"

3. Criticism must never contain criticism.

"Hey, what goes around comes around, right?"

4. Humorlessness is next to godliness.

"They say that those with no sense of humor have no sense at all but poetry is no laughing matter!"

5. Overcomplication is the seal of the truth.

"...and it pays the bills!"

6. The customer is always wrong.

"Don't like my poetry? Should I 'dumb it down' for you?"

7. Reject others, lest they reject you.

"Why would any self-respecting author want to write anything the public would want to read?"

8. Thou shalt commit verbosity.

"To paraphrase Mao: 'Why use one word when we can use a thousand?' Seriously, who's gonna pay to hear one measly word?"

9. Segmentation is unity.

"The smaller the readership the more intimate the experience."

10. People never really liked poetry.

"Robert Service didn't really make $500,000 from one poem, did he?"

11. Poetry can't be defined.

"Poetry is whatever someone presents as poetry. Why let the audience decide? Especially when there isn't one!"

12. Thy navel is the Lord, thy God. Thou shalt not have strange navels before It.

"'I contain multitudes!' Pardon me, but are you laughing or yawning?"

13. This poetry shit is easy!

"Why bother studying? Academics, critics, and editors are a waste of time."

14. Poetry can't be taught.

"Well, not to me, at least."

15. Poetry can't be dead.

       "That would require almost no one knowing a line of it written in the last two generations."

         Crickets.

        "Oh, wait..."

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