Ten Vital Issues Poets Ignore

Studies will show that in large families the lower that children are in the birth order the more likely they are to appreciate verse.  Why do you suppose that would be?

---

     There are always certain subjects best avoided.  In polite company, sex, politics and religion qualify.  Bringing up Superbowl XL won't make you friends in Seattle.  Canadians would rather forget the terrible summer beer strikes of 1982, despite the crucial role they played in their nation's sovereignty.  Don't jinx things by mentioning power outages along the U.S. eastern seaboard. 

     Among poets there are many taboo subjects.  These include, in ascending order of seriousness, the following, many of which overlap:

10. Multimedia

     Long before web browsers had video support, one of my favorite human beings wrote a book in HTML and posted it online for free public consumption.  When readers got to the part depicting a chanteuse singing in a nightclub users could click on the lyrics and hear someone play the song in the background.  As crude as it was, Internet multimedia was born!

     Since then, and despite amazing advances in technology and software, poetry's use of multimedia has been disappointing, amounting to little more than videtaped slams or, worse, readings.¹  Perhaps in another decade, with all of this science, poetry will finally be as visually stimulating and entertaining as it was in prehistoric caves.

9. Copyright

     Copyright infringement, if not outright plagiarism and piracy, is the order of the day on the Internet as it was among people when poetry was at its height.  How can we promote something we aren't even allowed to perform without tracking down the copyright holder and getting specific permission?  We can't see a dance band without hearing covers of popular songs.  Other than Poetry Out Loud, when was the last time you saw anyone perform¹ a contemporary poem they didn't write? 

     For now, poets would do well to concentrate on writing something worth reading.  Once they accomplish that they might work on writing something worth stealing.

8. Performance

     Speaking of "Poetry Out Loud", why is it for kids only?  What message does this send?

     Answer:  That adults don't perform poetry.  And, sure enough, they don't!  Not even authors¹!

     Now imagine how popular songs or plays would be if they were never performed.

     Why would younger siblings appreciate verse more than their older brothers and sisters?  Because Mommy and Daddy read Dr. Seuss to the elder children.  They recited it to the youngest.  Such is the difference performance can make.

7. Anti-aesthetics

     Prosody may be humankind's oldest science, predating astronomy and medicine.  Nevertheless, its collected wisdom is rejected by neophytes who then, in a best case scenario, spend years reinventing what they refuse to learn.  Little, if anything, comes of this hubris but, if something did, it would be added to the knowledge base and ignored by the next generation.

     Perhaps this is a charming aspect of youth.

     It is far less endearing in their educated elders.


6. Overproduction

     The proliferation of Creative Writing and MFA courses, often at the expense of English ones, is only one explanation for the explosion in production.  There are thousands of vanity--sorry, "showcase"--sites online, including many Facebook groups.  Slam continues to thrive.  Those responsible for this overproduction actually boast about this emphasis on quantity rather than quality.  "There is more poetry being written and published today...blah, blah, blah..."

     That little of this is actually poetry by any coherent definition doesn't matter.  The devolution from free verse to prose poetry to lineated prose feeds into this effort as poetry becomes a strictly participation sport.  It's more like yoga than an art form competing for an audience.  Try bringing up this topic in a room where 99% of the occupants are enablers or perpetrators.  At the very least, we are reminded that, while we can't have demand without supply (barring prohibition or people demanding the impossible), we can certainly have supply without demand.

5. The Watermelon Problem

     With one wave of my magic wand I just made you Editor-in-Chief of the largest poetry venue in the world.  Your excitement wanes as you read through the brain droppings that people submit, knowing you'll have to select a few dozen of these for your next edition.  This goes on for fifty years.  You begin to wonder if you shouldn't have taken that job at your uncle's mortuary.  More lulz. 

     Out of the blue, a once-in-a-lifetime brilliancy arrives! 

     What do you do?  If you stop and think how this will make the rest of your offerings appear you might refuse to publish it.  After all, do you really want to hear your subscribers whine about why all poetry can't be like this?²  Do you treat it like every other poem you publish, none of which have ever been quoted or performed?  That is, do you bury it in the dirt you've had to publish for half a century?  Or do you highlight it?  If so, how?  Do you cancel all other poems and publish that verse, filling in the rest of the edition with discussions of the masterpiece?

     If a top periodical cannot promote the best poem of its time what hope is there for lesser works?  Or for poetry's revival?

4. Content Regency

     Attend any class.  Read any review or scholarly criticism written in the last few decades.  Spend some time on the blogosphere.  What is the focus of conversation?  Style?  Form?  Rhythm?  Sonics?  Or is it subject matter?  We giggle when non-poets reveal that they prefer verse about bunnies to poems about clouds, yet this is exactly what we find in most literary commentary.  Only the language is different.  Artless lineated prose is praised if it is about philosophy, psychology or literature itself.  The world yawns.  When it dares to demand [gasp!] poetry in its poetry the expressions "unsophisticated" and "anti-intellectual" loom.  If 90+% of the poems written today were sonnets about cats would those who complain be accused of ailoraphobia?

     Remember when people used to say that poety is not about what you say but how you say it?  That is sacrilege now.

3. Education and The Inspiration Myth

     In 2013 the average English or MFA graduate knows less about the elements of poetry than the average grade six graduate in 1913.  We have Creative Writing professors who don't know whether "Prufrock" is free verse or metrical.  We wonder what students are being taught, only to discover that the focus is on content (see above) and inspiration, inverting the truism about 99% perspiration versus 1% inspiration.

     Isn't there something perverse about encouraging people to do something they don't know how to do?  Wouldn't it make sense to show them the fundamentals first so that they have a skill to practice?

2. Convenient Poetics

     Anything that refers to poetry's failure to find an audience is either ignored or denied, along with the audience itself.  As recently as today, August 26th, 2013, in "The Bibliophilic Blogger",  British poet Nicholas Murray asked "Do People Still Buy Poetry?"  He made some good points (e.g. "we lack proper criticism") but, along the way, he used the failure of an obscure book in 1929--a few years after poetry received its fatal wound from music on the radio--to demonstrate that "there never has been a golden age".  So, there was never a time when poets were rock stars, when poetry outsold prose, when poetry appeared in almost every newspaper and magazine, or when Robert Service made $500,000 from one poem?  That's quite the history rewrite!

    Without a hint of irony he concludes:  "If poets themselves don't buy each other in numbers then we are in trouble."  Substitute any other practitioners for "poets" (e.g. novelists, playwrights, magicians, car manufacturers, etc.) and you'll see the problem.  A potential audience consisting of more than 99% of the population is ignored/denied.

1. Audience

     Any one of the above could prevent a resurgence of interest in poetry.  Nevertheless, they all disappear if poetry regains its audience.  Multimedia explodes with productions featuring poetry, as it recently did for rap.  The sheer number of these would make copyright issues moot.  Open mics and slams would need larger venues, if not larger media.  Prosody's case against anti-aesthetics and in favor of education would make itself.  Content Regency shrivels in the face of a multiplicity of poems on the same subject--just pick the best one!  Production and demand would come closer to balancing.  The Watermelon problem disappears on Facebook.  Convenient Poetics withers in the face of what its advocates fear most:  a resurgence of interest in poetry.  People learning iambs from trochees as early as elementary school wouldn't need anyone to tell them what is and what isn't poetry.  Rather, they would tell us.

     As it should be.

---

Footnotes:

¹ - It is rare enough to hear someone reading someone else's contempory poem, let alone performing one. 

     While they wait patiently and clap politely, attendees at most poetry readings look like they're filming an ExLax commercial.  That's on a good day.  On a bad day it looks like someone is re-running the Milner experiment.

² - This may explain why the greatest metrical poem of this century remains unpublished.
  

---

    Your feedback is appreciated!

    Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull".  Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook.  Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.

    If you would like to contact us confidentially or blog here as "Gray for a Day" please use the box below, marking your post as "Private" and including your email address;  the moderator will bring your post to our attention and prevent it from appearing publicly.

    We look forward to hearing from you.

---

Practical Poetry: Critique: Workshopping with knowledgeable peers

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #18

    There are two major differences between the online and academic approaches.  The first is that high end Internet forums involve critique after one has learned the craft.  The typical MFA class practices critique either before or instead of technical study.

   The second distinction involves Content Regency.  Because most business card poets don't study the elements of craft there is nothing other than content (e.g. plot, theme, genre, moral, allusions, et cetera) on which they can base their criticisms. If you have a point to make or a story to tell and you can operate a spell checker then--presto!--you're a poet!  This is the essence of Convenient Poetics.

    With apologies for singling her out--this attitude is universal in the PoBiz but, if we think about it, all negative examples are cruel--here is a Question and Answer exchange from an interview with PRISM Poetry Contest Judge Rhea Tregebov:


Question:  "What makes a good poem for you?"

Answer:  "One that engages the reader on all levels: intellectual, ethical, sensual, emotional."

Contest Judge Rhea Tregebov

    Well, this excludes just about every classical or contemporary poem worth reading.  Whole genres, beginning with comedy, are removed from consideration.  No "Miller's Tale" here!  Romantic poems and elegies need not apply.  Most troubling is the bookburner's favorite expression, "ethical".  WTF?  Whose ethics?  Does this mean that poems reflecting the sexism or racism of an era aren't "good"?  So Shakespeare was...a hack?  Speaking of bookburners, I assume that an unapologetic declaration of love for a repressive, murderous theocratic tyrant wouldn't qualify as "good".  Nor, I assume, would a politically and morally ambiguous requiem for a controversial leader (unless the judge shares the deceased's politics?).

    What happened to the quaint notion that poetry writing contests (and editors and critics) should honor excellent poetry writing?  With no mention (or knowledge?) of technical aspects, couldn't someone just cut up their "intellectual, ethical, sensual, emotional" prose with linebreaks and submit it?  In short, which of Ms. Tregebov's requirements has anything whatsoever to do with poetry?

    Obviously, our "Squirriculum" would follow the online critical forum's example of informed critique.  The focus should be on technique, including two elements that other approaches ignore:  performance and presentation. 

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #20

     Ideally, all of the students would have Internet access, allowing them to record their performances, upload them to YouTube "privately" (i.e. such that only those with the URL can locate it), and then email the text and YouTube URL to the other students beforehand.  In any case, they'll be doing it live in front of the class, with the text displayed on a monitor or projected onto a screen.  The first lesson the students will learn is the value of preparation--of memorizing their words so that they can perform them.  There is no substitute for "looking the bastards in the eye" to gauge their reactions.  Failing that, the students can learn how to avoid staring at their prompters, the key being big fonts and peripheral vision.  This is something they can practice, the audience yelling "Eyes!" whenever the speaker loses visual contact with them.

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #27

     At this juncture we need to discuss an integral aspect of art, that being value added.  Your words should add to the significant value of silence.  Writers understand that performance enhances text but the opposite is equally true.  An opera singer can make a telephone book sound lovely.  They can even make the names sound rhythmic, simply by timing the stresses.  However, they cannot make the text interesting.  The more coherent and meaningful the writing the more attractive the performance.  If a medium does not add to the final product it can be deleted or modified;  we can all think of silly music videos that add nothing to the songs or book-based films that should have been shot with guns, not cameras.

Models:

    The bad news is that, beyond productions of Shakespeare, there are very few acceptable performances of poetry to be found.  Most are either dull readings or OTT slam bluster.  The good news is that any fine performance--theatre, movies, television (yes, I said television), standup or storytelling--can serve as an exemplar, its features including:

1. Credibility - The sounds, gestures and facial expressions make it seem like the person is making the words up as they go along as opposed to reciting them.



2. Voice - The speaker sounds consistently like the person who would be telling the story.



3. Clarity - The words should be clear and not rushed like a slammer trying to cram as many words as possible under a time limit.  Establish the difference between shouting and projecting.



4. Modulation - The volume, pace, tone and urgency of the performer follow the plot--buildup, climax and anticlimax--rather than the usual soporific drone of the typical reader or the constant shouting of the typical slammer.

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #1

    The need to "own an audience" is what distinguishes poetry from what careerists produce.  As important as the ability to recognize good from mediocre or bad is to an editor or contest judge, it is that much more integral to a poet.

    Suppose a person were able to predict that more than 90% of people, including more than 90% of poets and every other significant demographic, would prefer Poem A to any other published poem listed.  What would this prove?

1. That great poems exhibit certain shared traits;  or,



2. That "it's all just a matter of taste!"

     Students who reply #2 need to be studying Statistics, not poetry.

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #15

     Attendees can begin their critical approach to poetry by studying the "Laws of Poetry".  At the very least, they should understand that even the most profound or inspirational prose doesn't become poetry by inserting linebreaks.  At the moment, the fact that this proviso (i.e. that poetry should actually contain poetry) excludes more than 99% of the "free verse" and "prose poetry" being written and published today is not our concern.

     In an educational workshop environment it may seem natural to conclude that the purpose of critique is to improve the poet or poetry in general.  Not so.  Those are merely welcome byproducts.  The purpose of critique begins and ends with improving the poem. 

     Here are some guidelines for workshop participants, largely based on the online workshop ethos developed on Usenet and, later, web fora such as the Poetry Free-For-All, the Alsop Review (Gazebo) and Eratosphere:

1. The critiquer's job is to improve the poem where warranted and possible
   
        Critics should not be asked to turn a laundry list into a Sonnet LXXIII, nor should they be expected to improve on a Sonnet LXXIII.  If a poem is perfect or not ready for anyone's attention, starting with the critic's and the poet's, then critics should say that and nothing more.


2. Avoid the Megalomaniacal Troll
   
         Students are bound to encounter "MTs" (aka "Empties") who subscribe to [the satirical] "The Dennis Hammes Rules of Poetry" and believe that every molecule of ink that flows from their pen is ambrosia.  There's at least one in every workshop.  If you can't spot your workshop's Empty then it's probably you.  (Just kidding!)
   
        Those beyond criticism are beyond hope.  Others must recognize that the critiquer is your friend, one who is doing you a favor...and other favors may ensue (see below).
   
   
3. Do not defend or explain your poem

     We're lucky when our poem gets one chance to make its case.  It won't get two.  Footnote any terms or conventions the audience might not recognize.


4. Try to have your writing make sense

     Even if your work is going to say nothing it should do so clearly.  For example, under repressive regimes poets often won't [seem to] be making their point because they are not permitted to do so.  Their lines are borders, barely containing what lies between them.  Such samizdat poets use code words, symbols, metaphors and references understood by their supportive audience members.  Without these conventional meanings in place the writers would be producing cryptocrap, their audience soon siphoned off by the lure of crossword puzzles and sudokus.  Oh, and that old bullshit-baffles-brains trick of swallowing a thesaurus in order to fool people into thinking you're saying something profound has been done to death.


5. As a critic or, especially, as a poet, be succinct.
   
        Enough said.


6. Do not blow smoke up anyone's ass
   
        Next to plagiarism, the fastest and surest way to ruin your credibility is to engage in blurbing.  An editor who will cross a street to avoid such a sycophant will often seek out skilled critics, hoping they may have recently encountered a blockbuster unpublished poem, often in a workshop.  Such experts, though rare, can help a new poet far more than vapid praise will.


7. Do not "crit[ique] the crit[ique]"
   
        Don't highlight the fact that your perspective conflicts with that of a previous commenter.  Just state your case and move on.


8. Thank your critics
   
        All honest perspectives are a useful gift.  Do not whine or whinge.  Do not attack or cross-examine your critics.  Do not list which of their suggestions you will be ignoring.  Beyond honest requests for clarification, just say "Thanks."


9. Avoid Content Regency
   
        Concentrate on the writing, not the subject matter.  Poems about Subject A are not inherently better or worse than those on Subject B.  Profound ones are not inherently better than funny or evocative ones.  At most, one might comment about a trend (e.g. "Yet another free verse confessional effort, I see!"), the implication being that if everyone uses the same form, genre and theme the search for originality gets more intense.  Above all, avoid political or personal arguments.  Accept that you may be called on to help someone say something with which you vehemently disagree.


10. Critique is not interpretation
    
         Critics should point out where there is a lack of clarity.  This includes unfamiliarity with terms (e.g. don't be afraid to admit that you didn't know that "bone-house" meant "body") or customs (e.g. "Why are the people wearing black to a wedding?").  If explanations are required it will be the poet's/presenter's/annotator's responsibility to detail them.


11. Critique is not test marketing
    
         The point of the exercise isn't whether or not the critics like the poem;  we need to hear the critics' best guess as to whether or not the intended audience will like it.

     Participants in these particular workshops will be encouraged to comment on the elements of performance mentioned earlier:  credibility, voice, clarity and modulation.  This is a reflection of the fact that more people will see contemporary poems on YouTube than will read them in books or literary magazines.  Avoid clapping during the performance;  the slam tradition is to show your approval by snapping your fingers instead.

Bird-dogging:

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #12

     While it is hardly their main one, critiquers can serve another vital function.  In the case of Erin Hopson's Great Poems of Our Time: "How Aimée remembers Jaguar", critics encountered a poem that couldn't be improved.  It may seem that great writing makes critics irrelevant.  Not so fast!  Whereas 1,000 blurbers won't help anyone find an audience (if only because the same 1,000 blurbers will each praise ten other friends and fellow alumni in the same breath), one word from a respected, objective critic can rescue a brilliant poem from oblivion.

     Almost a century ago an impatient, surly critic helped an obscure young man work on some verse that had appeared in a church bulletin--this despite considerable differences in theology between the two men.  Theirs was no "touchy-feely" collaboration;  the critic would throw more than just tantrums when he felt the heterometer included too much pentameter.  His role did not end there, though.  The finished verse was about to be rejected by a prominent poetry magazine--at that time "prominent poetry magazine" wasn't an oxymoron--when the critic championed the poem by scanning it for the editor.  The rest, as they say, is history.

 

---

      Don't forget to repeat that survey from Lesson #1:

     "Find two mediocre contest-winning and/or published poems that have been blurbed.  Add this poem and this verse into the mix.  Ask your students which two of these poems are better than the other two.  Record your results but do not discuss them yet."

---

Convenient Poetics

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

---

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..."

---