Poetry in 2032 - Part II: Criticism

"Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the
Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo." - Don Marquis

---

"It is impossible to predict the future."

Actually, it is child's play if we understand where we are and where we've been. It is arithmetic that even I can understand: on a straight line track a train that was 100 miles east of us an hour ago and is here now will be 100 miles west of us in another hour. Human nature being what it is, few things surprise historians.

The Present:

Cynics may view "Carol Ann Duffy is 'wrong' about poetry, says Geoffrey Hill" as a schoolyard tiff between a Christian Bök wannabe and Edgar Guest's lovechild, while wondering why anyone would wannabe Christian Bök. If we ignore the article itself, though, and focus on the comments we see a visceral disdain for criticism. If we look at similar responses to the contributions of other critics (e.g. Marjorie Perloff, William Logan and, especially, Anis Shivani), contrasted to the reception that greets blurbers, we see how the print world feels about negative reviews. These are often regarded as attacks on the author or the art form itself, leading to questions about the critic's credentials or motives. Contrast this to the online community in general, online workshoppers in particular, and you see two starkly opposite attitudes: the print world actively discourages critique while internauts actively encourage it.

Live poetry stands somewhere between these extremes. At slams, only polite applause is permitted from audience members, similar to the blurbs-only ethos of the print world, but performances are judged, similar to the online experience. Even though open mics allow clapping only, one would have to be deaf to not notice the difference between polite and enthusiastic applause.

Open online platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube are and will continue to be the proving ground for all audiovisual art, including poetry. In their default modes, these are much closer to the workshop experience than the print medium. Viewers can vote thumbs up or down and leave comments. Granted, the original poster can delete critical remarks but people who commented earlier will receive notice, if not the content, of these. This is much closer to the onliners' approach than that of the print or stage media.

The Past:

If you think the offerings of Hill, Perloff, Logan and Shivani are harsh, consider how writers and performers were treated when poetry's fortunes were peaking (or should I say piquing?). Literary criticism was bloodsport! Shakespeare, the consensus choice as the greatest poet of all time, worked in a milieu where unsatisfied attendees threw things at those onstage.

The Future:

Clearly, environments where a poet is exposed to the honest, undisguised reactions of audience members produce better work.

By any measure, the poetry of 2032 will be better than what we've seen in the last half century. As the print medium winds down and its publishers and organizations migrate to the Internet they bring considerable gravitas and resources. The pre-existing online community adds its expertise and a workable, candid critical ethos. Performers bring it all to life. In the coming years we can watch these three communities cross-pollinate, if only to acknowledge whatever successes they enjoy.

Will this melange translate to greater popularity, though?

Over time, yes.

It is a positive causal spiral, fueled largely by something as unsophisticated as the comments box you see below. Greater appreciation of the audience and its participation improves the product, product improvement increases audience appreciation and participation. Around and around we go.

Preservation, Presentation and Promotion - Part I

In addition to the usual spate of anthologies throughout the year, the end of 2011 was marked by foundations, publishers, critics and commentators making lists of top ten books. Missing from all of these is an English language poetry collection that:

1. outsold any of these books;



2. received more praise from arms-length critics than all of these books combined;



3. was written by a poet voted by 133 of the world's toughest critics as the one they'd most want to read;



4. was written by a poet of whom few, if any, critics or readers had seen a photo, let alone met; and,



5. contained the closest thing to a serious (i.e. not a nursury rhyme, bawdy limerick or efforts like those mentioned here) iconic poem this century has produced.

So why was this compendium overlooked by all of these listmakers? Was it a deliberate snub? Politics? Discrimination? A conspiracy? A scandal?


Nope.

It is merely a reflection of the fact that there are three discrete poetry worlds with varying degrees of awareness of the others. Each of these has its own raison d'être, promotional models, media, ethos, aesthetics, prominent figures and institutions. The tome in question was written by a leading denizen from another milieu.

The most obvious upshot of this narrow focus is that, if dramatic poet William Shakespeare were alive today, his work would appear in none of these lists or anthologies. If page poets were even vaguely aware of their counterparts we might see anthologies entitled "Best [insert nationality here] Poetry in Print".

Preservation

In general, paper outlasts electromagnetic storage which, in turn, survives longer than speech. Each of the three metacommunities derive their identity and Prime Directive from these lifespans. Thus, the Print World's principle role is the preservation of poetry, much as Dark Age Irish scribes protected so much classical literature against the ravages of time, ignorance and outright persecution. Every aspect of this subculture reflects this shared, noble goal. Today, Print Worlders range from vanity authors who want their thoughts and experiences archived to mentors who hope to obtain or retain a job teaching the thing they love to new generations of mentors. Due to the latter and depending on how sympathetic the speaker is, "professional" and "careerist" are terms commonly used to describe this environment.

So why does no one (at all, according to Giles Coren) except, perhaps, one's associates (according to Robert Archambeault), want to read the poetry produced here?

A cynic might answer with another question: "Would anyone want to watch football games played by NFL coaches?"

This isn't far from:

• "Those who can't do, teach" (Charles Shultz, "Peanuts")
  



• "Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach."
  H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)



• "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches."
  
  George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
  



• "Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym."
  
  Woody Allen (1977)



• "Those who know do. Those who understand teach."
  
  - Aristotle

The last view may be the healthiest and most apt. As long as we're using sports-related analogies a better question might be: "Would anyone want to watch football games played by NFL referees, commentators and statisticians?"


Members of the other two supercommunities will likely never understand the concept or purpose of "art without audience". Nevertheless, the "publish-or-perish" need to create and sustain a CV based on prestigious publication of criticism and poetry serves a literary academic population competing for fewer and fewer positions. Here we observe a behavior that must baffle outsiders: having been published in an esteemed magazine, page poets tend to be less likely to resubmit.

"Once I can include that venue on a resumé why not move on to newer pastures?"

Print publishers face two challenges relating to the poetry they produce:

1. It is inaccessible.



2. It is inaccessible.

Debates rage elsewhere about poetry needing to make sense. Remove the audience from the equation, though, and this issue becomes moot.

Physical inaccessibility of today's print poetry would be the greater dilemma if the purpose were to promote the poetry rather than the poet. The chances of two people--even two poetry lovers--having read the same contemporary poem are remote--yes, even if the poem were to appear in "The Atlantic Monthly", "The New Yorker" or "Poetry" magazine. It is largely a matter of cost and inconvenience limiting the creation of icons. We can quote or paraphrase a movie (e.g. "May the force be with you!"), confident of recognition, but not a contemporary novel, let alone a recent poetry book. Even here in the poetry blogosphere we can and will discuss aesthetics, trends and poets but rarely individual poems (unless we bring everyone up to speed by including it, perhaps via a link). Not surprisingly, magazine publishers are branching out with webzine versions.



Notwithstanding the efforts of Helen Vendler and William Loman, criticism in the print world is rarely critical. Jobs are at stake here. Typically, it is blurbing and/or interpretive--"glorified footnoting" in one cynic's view. "From all appearance," said one observer, "its central purpose must be to serve as a lesson guide for teachers, uncovering all the clever [usually literary] allusions and references that can fill up classroom time."

Add up all the factors--the absence of audience and criticism, the professionalism/careerism, the focus on poets rather than poems, etc.--and the Print World's relativistic, laissez faire attitude toward "new prosodies" begins to make sense. Why get involved in definitions and aesthetics when the other person's future may rely on their acceptance? The banana you're trying to take away means much more to the gorilla.

Page Poetry is serious business! How different an enterprise would it be if its purpose were to sell books and magazines?

Next: Presentation Poetry