Why a poem, or: why is it I chose a life of poetry rather than a life of crime? The answer’s pretty obvious, I think. I can get away with murder in a poem without fear of anyone either knowing or caring, never mind suffer any sort of serious reprimand or punishment for committing the foul deed. Please keep back of the yellow tape. Nothing to see here, folks. Just another day at the office. Move along, move along. But, maybe that’s just me. What about those many others out there who have decided that the creation of a poem is a viable and worthwhile pursuit? After all, it’s an oft-recognized belief (if not a downright fact) that there’s a poet under every rock (or, at the very least, every other rock). And yet (also an oft-recognized belief, if not a downright fact) that the majority of these otherwise fine folk never bother to read poetry (outside their own spawn, of course, or that of their closest friends, who write in a similarly hermetic fashion), never buy a book — as my pal Kenneth Rexroth was so fond of repeating: “I’ve had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book” — claiming that they fear contamination that will prove detrimental to their own singular and original voices. My instant knee-jerk reaction to this type of attitude is always the same: Please! Do everyone (yourselves included) a big favour, and allow for some level of contamination (or, for the more user-friendly types, “influence”). Your voice is not as singular or original as you might imagine. I suspect that these same people also managed to avoid perusing T.S. Eliot’s pivotal essay titled “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” wherein he states rather clearly that poetry should be “an escape from emotion,” as opposed to a wallowing in it. Further, that “talent is acquired through a careful study of poetry.” Plus, the added claim that Tradition “cannot be inherited, and if you want it, you must obtain it by great labour.” This is sage and crucial advice (in my humble opinion) that often serves to separate the poet from the poetaster [nota bene: a derogatory term applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, poetaster has implications of unwarranted pretensions to artistic value. The faults of a poetaster frequently include oversentimentality, too much use of the “pathetic fallacy” (the attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, especially in art and literature), and unintentionally “bathetic” (an amusingly failed attempt at presenting artistic greatness) choice of subject matter.]
This line of thought — “study and great labour” — certainly doesn’t appear to be lost by those involved in other artistic pursuits. Imagine all those aspiring painters who fill up the various Museums of Art every day and spend hours simply copying the Old Masters. Or novice musicians who practice the same chords or scales or riffs or fingerings or styles of recognized experts in their field over and over again. Or film students who watch the same movie repeatedly to understand how the various parts come together to create a satisfying whole.
Conceptual poet Kenneth Goldsmith teaches a class called “Uncreative Writing” in which one exercise consists of students — rather than write an “original” piece in the “style” of someone, that is, attempt to get into, say, Jack Kerouac’s head space [here, Goldsmith rightly notes that the student(s) would be better off “taking a road trip across the country in a ’48 Buick convertible, top down, gulping Benzedrine by the fistful, washing them down with bourbon, all the while typing furiously away on a manual typewriter. And even then…”] — being asked to retype five pages of their choice, exactly as written. I mean, what better way to get to — not only the “what,” but the “how”: the nuts and bolts, the gears and pulleys — of a writer’s craft than by giving the work itself an up-close-and-personal inspection?
What he found was that many students became “intensely aware of the text’s formal qualities and for the first time in their lives began to think of texts not only as transparent, but as opaque objects to be moved around a white space. Others said that it was the most intense reading experience they ever had.”
So, what is it about the specific practice of poetry that makes [certain] people think they’ve sprung from the head of Zeus complete and in full possession of all their poetic faculties?
In part, I surmise, it’s the nature of the beast. Seems that, unlike a work of prose, almost anything can be labeled a poem these days, especially if it’s compact, heartfelt, contains some small amount of pat imagery, and maybe a simile or two tossed in for good measure. This simple description probably fits most of what we call “popular” poetry, and if that’s your particular cup of ambrosia, stick with it and more power to you. Whatever floats your boat, as they say. On the other hand, for anyone wishing to step up their game somewhat, and produce and publish poems of an advanced “literary” nature, more “study and great labour” is required.
Let’s (for fun) take an example of each and compare the differences.
Rupi Kaur’s poetry (sorry I can’t offer an example since most of her poems are shorter than 5 lines and I don’t want to be sued for copyright infringement) is comparable to Hallmark Card greetings, or else those framed, sentimental sayings from IKEA, suitable for hanging on walls and later referred to by the owners as a source of either solace or inspiration: “Live the life you love / love the life you live” or: “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light” or: “Fight less / cuddle more” &ETC. Well, as H.L. Mencken once said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public,” and Kaur’s books have gone on to sell millions.
Bring on Christian Bök’s 2002 Griffin Prize winning collection “Eunoia,” described as a univocalic lipogram which uses an accented rhyme scheme through the use of syntactical parallelism. Each of the five chapters — titled A, E, I O, U — uses only words that contain the single vowel identified by the title, and each of the chapters must refer to the art of writing as well as to describe a culinary banquet, a prurient debauch, a pastoral tableau and a nautical voyage.
As you can see, we’ve moved well beyond poems that are mere heartfelt maxims and clichés, and into a realm of conscious theoretical construct and intentional word usage. Of course, it follows that — according to my sources at Wikipedia — the book has sold about 20,000 copies. A huge amount for a literary book of poems, but which hardly compares to the sale numbers of Kaur, Hallmark, and/or Ikea.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating that one is required to be an authority on such highfalutin literary terms as Glyconic: a verse in classical meter that can be defined as a logoedic tetropody cataleptic in syllabam; or Hemiepes: the first foot of a dactylic hexameter in Greek meter; or Phonosymbolism: the independent emotional significance that the phonic elements of a word or verse can assume, only that some basic familiarity with the history and tools of the “craft” of poetry might prove useful, even enlightening and/or — why the heck not? — enjoyable. After all, it’s nearly impossible to break the rules if you don’t know what the rules are in the first place. What I would suggest, at the least, is that aspiring poets ask themselves the question: why a poem? Why a poem rather than a plastic model airplane, or a hand-knitted sweater, or a marathon, or a degree in Psychotherapy, or a lovely home-cooked meal of sautéed liver with some fava beans and a nice glass of Chianti?
Why, indeed?
I’d like to close this short discussion with a prose poem — “prose poem” wha??? yes, definitely a hearse of a different choler — by Natalee “Nat” Slagor, a Danish poet now living in Toronto, which I hope will encapsulate some or many of the sentiments I’ve put forward, titled “So What If.” Please feel free to make of it what you will.
So what if poetry is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional, notational & semantic content. So what if a poem is a form in which the skillful choice & arrangement of words achieves a desired emotional effect. So what if poetry is a chemical alphabet infused into a sequence of DNA which is then implanted into a bacterium. So what if poems express loving, healing & touching feelings which we can all relate to. So what if a poem forms when an emotion has found its thought & the thought has found words. So what if a poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth. So what if the poem is of the mind & the act of finding what will suffice. So what if poetry in this age of stark & unlovely actualities is stark directness w/o a shadow of a lie or a shadow of deflection anywhere. So what if a poem is a species of composition opposed to science. So what if poetry does not come naturally like the leaves of a tree, then it had better not come at all. So what if poetry is social lawlessness. So what if poetry is not simply a lexical preference but marks a shift in the conception of scriptive work from a fixed object of analysis or conception to an open, methodological field for semantic production. So what if delight is the chief & only end of poetry. So what if everything is a dangerous drug except poetry, which is unendurable. So what if poetry means the total removal of the poet by the poet. So what if poetry is a little life of dried tubers. So what if a poem is a piece of wood that discovers it’s a violin. So what if a truly perfect poem contains an infinitely small vocabulary. So what if poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. So what if poetry is a delicious pleasure of a useless occupation. So what if poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty & (unless incidentally) has no concern whatsoever w/Duty or Truth. So what if the more concretely & vividly we express the interactions of things the better the poetry. So what if a poem has its own life, that its parts form something quite different from a body of neatly organized biographical data. So what if the business of the poem is not to examine the individual but the species; to remark general properties & large appearances. So what if poetry brings similitude & representation to configurations waiting from forever to be spoken. So what if the rational person is least able to understand poetry. So what if a poem is like a dog eating itself from the tail up. So what if a poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech & song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, & often exhibits such formal elements as metre, rhyme, & stanzaic structure. So what if a poem is not prose, meaning it’s not a short story or a novel or a screenplay, but what is it? So what if a poem is a bunch of words that captures a moment in time or a feeling in unexpected ways. So what if a poem is a bit abstract. So what if poetry obstinately makes no claims on originality. So what if a poem is characterized by a highly developed artistic form, & by the use of heightened language & rhythm, is able to express an intensely imaginative interpretation of the subject. So what if poetry denies its end in any descriptive act, meaning any act which leaves the attention outside the poem. So what if a poem is a verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid & imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen. So what if a poem is a form of literature that uses aesthetic & rhythmic qualities of language — such as phonoaesthetics, sound symbolism, & metre — to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic, ostensible meaning. So what if poetry is where sound echoes, where utterances concatenate, where, inevitably, all acts stall. So what if a poem is a language art form that we have used throughout history & is still an important part of our culture & uses sounds & images to express emotions & experience. So what if a poem can be about anything, from love to loss to the rusty gate at the old farm. So what if poetry is not a healing lotion, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. So what if poetry sometimes develops a greyness; the light can never get in; the surface is smudgy. So what if a poem is simply an anus w/teeth only capable of ejecting a waxy blue fart of hideous pain. So what if a poem is the creation of a creature covered in fur that breaks your heart. So what if poetry makes nothing happen. So what if writing a poem can seem daunting, especially if you do not feel you are naturally creative or bursting with poetic ideas; with the right inspiration & approach you can write a poem that you can be proud to share with others, in a class or with your family & friends. So what if poetry can inspire & make us think about what it means to be a member of the human race, by just spending a few minutes reading a poem each day, new worlds can be revealed. So what if for only pennies a day, a few dollars a month, you too can be writing poetry like a pro as well as be published by a reputable national publishing house (paving the way to global recognition & fame, plus high financial rewards as part of the booming poetry renaissance industry) in less time than it takes to fill out the simple attached form & answer this skill testing question: what lazy animal does the quick brown fox jump over? Don’t delay, act now, as spots are limited. 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Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence, and remember: Live, Love, Laugh!
Stan Rogal [photo credit: Jacquie Jacobs] lives and writes in the city once referred to as "Toronto-the-good," now "Toronto-the-scandalous." His work is rumoured to have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in Canada, the US and Europe. The alleged author of a dozen poetry books and several chapbooks (some with above/ground press, maybe). An amateur oenophile and autodidactic intellectual classicist [reformed]. Speaks semi-fluent English and controversial French.