Why Poetry Gets a Bad Rap
Jeff VanderMeer • February 17th, 2008 @ 10:23 am • Culture
Listening to NPR right now and this poet comes on, to the accompaniment of what I can only describe as soap opera or soft porn music, and reads a science fiction poem that includes the line:
His sax is opening like a hole in space.
Now, when you hear this at first, your first thought is that it’s not “sax” but “sack” or “sacks,” which somehow I like better.
February 17, 2008 at 11:47 am
While I like well-written poetry and have loved the audio recording of “Howl,” that must have been pretty horrid stuff. Reminds me of the time that I had to read a sample passage to a class that had the classic line of “And he put a flower in his buttonhole.” Needless to say, the class magically paid much more attention after that bit…
February 17, 2008 at 11:59 am
Oh, I love good poetry. There’s just too much poetry out there, period.
JV
February 17, 2008 at 1:15 pm
No kidding! Once, about 5-6 years ago, I agreed to read through the poetry submissions at wotmania. I quickly gave up reading it because it was so bad. Took me months to recover sufficiently to resume reading actual poetry, which I enjoy as much as I enjoy plays/theatre.
February 17, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Science fiction poem? Good God!
What next, a 3000 stanza odyssey through the Milky Way in iambic pentameter?
Don’t tell me it’s already been done.
February 17, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I’m fond of many forms of prose but have always been a classicist when it comes to poetry. Contemporary verse seems too often filled with penny contradictions and inane imagery. A sign of the times, perhaps.
But why should the novel, which came of age in a much more formalized period than our own, still be going strong while poety–its older sister–suffers so today? Does (post-)modernism inherently favor prose and abuse poem? Or just simple economics: it’s cheaper and easier to air bad poetry than to publish a bad novel?
I’m sure there is some good stuff out there today, but I’ve never had the patience to find it. Poetry has been ghettoized out of the mainstream, and it’s tough to brave the aisles of a run-down literary minority neighborhood at dusk, looking for hidden gems, when the ruffians of the area are so eager to assault you with their clanking pithy pipes; to brain you with their brickbats.
Oh look, there I’ve gone.
February 17, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Wait until y’all discover the glories that is the Rhysling Award…
February 17, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Makes you consider why poetry as a literary mode seems so much more susceptible to intolerability (whether in terms of preciousness or pompousness or just plain old mediocrity).
Maybe it’s the burden of heightened formal constraint and an increased consciousness (self-consciousness) about language and image. Good prose is obviously not an easy achievement, but — in my mind — there is a density in poetry, where all but the essence has either been stripped off or boiled away — leaving something exceptionally magical or throughly rotten.
February 17, 2008 at 6:54 pm
You should have heard poetry from this woman at this church I used to go to. It made me want to gag, and the rest of the people acted like she was really great. It was stomach-churning. Lol!
February 17, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Why bad rap “gets” poetry.
February 17, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Larry–I googled the ‘Rhysling Award.’ You’re right! Holy photon! And it’s been around 30-odd years.
And I never knew of its existence, being something of a versificator myself. Oh the chagrin!
Jeff’s right, too. There’s just too much verse. And prose, actually. And the freaking blogs! OMG, they’re friggin BLACK HOLES. So instead of eating up more time tonight reading this estimable blog, I’m gonna go find some science fiction poems!
February 17, 2008 at 10:18 pm
To scoff at them, naturally. =D
February 17, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Plus, that line of poetry Jeff mentioned only serves to confuse me. “His sax opened like a hole in space?”
February 17, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Also, I think part of the problem is the fact that too many people write poetry. And not enough people realize how many other poets there are. I have seen some ATROCIOUS poetry on websites–simply god-awful.
February 17, 2008 at 10:33 pm
The Vogons would be so proud to see their poetry has spread across the internet hinterlands…
February 17, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Who are the Vogons?
February 17, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Unless I’ve misspelled the name badly (it’s been 7 years since I last read it), they were the “villains” in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who were infamous for their horrid poetry. Here’s a sample:
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don’t!
February 18, 2008 at 8:42 am
Larry–the Vogon’s poetry is suspiciously similar to the nonsense poems of Lewis Carroll. Only Lewis Carroll doesn’t have the knack for making his audience writhe in unbearable agony, like the Vogon’s do.
But speaking of Lewis Carroll, a few years back when I was still laboring along for my degree, I somehow unearthed a poet that had been long buried in oblivion. His name–as far as I can gather–is one Lord Marmion Marmelad, but witness how similar his verse is to Lewis Carroll’s. And Lord Marmelad was the precursor! Eeeeenterrresting.
Woxhibber
Glub! Glub! went the Woxhibber
Fritzing afore the waxen smower
Bloobing, blibbing the silver lith
Atop his emerald wobwith tower
From early rise of northern sun
When the western fell from sight
Warbled the Woxhibber as he spun
Until the creeping of second night
When came the tiny sprittle-nith
All flouping through the poffle fields
And by the hissing of the sudderzith
So came they bearing eglop shields
Up the wobwith tower they sped
And cackling greedily as they rose
So took the Woxhibber his lithim bed
And cast it down upon the mini foes
Ticki! Ticki! went their shrieks
High above the emerald wall
Glib! Glib! Replied the Woxhibber
And nith by nith they began to fall
Glub! Glub! went the Woxhibber
Fritzing afore the waxen smower
Bloobing, blibbing the silver lith
Atop his emerald wobwith tower
February 18, 2008 at 9:46 am
Reading that reminds me of the Jabberwocky poem :D
February 18, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Indeed. I’m beginning to think that all along Lewis Carroll was a hack. ;)
February 18, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Oh, it was quite obvious that the dude had Reefer Madness. That or he was the LSD Prophet with those ‘shrooms and magic potions.
February 19, 2008 at 10:10 pm
And my understanding is that there may have been something slightly perverse in his fondness for little girls.