Does Poetry Matter?

Too some more than others. But look at it this way, without it we wouldn't have songs, for they are in a way poetry.

Poetry doesn't have to be consequential to the world...it just has to be consequential to one person. Everything is always compared on a macrocosm. I think that's one of humanity's greatest errors. You have to forget about the perceived inconsequentiality of poetry on the North American consciousness. You have to ask yourself individually, "Does poetry matter?"

For me, poetry does matter. I find it rather lifesaving, in fact. Is it relevant? That's the universal joke poking through the fog. Nothing is relevant. We all get spit into this world and horked out of it. Whatever happens between those two events is just as irrelevant as the two events themselves. Life happens. Having the arts to look at/hear/read while we're floating through that life...man, that's cool. That's relevant!

KTC said:

We all get spit into this world and horked out of it.

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Quoted for its truth and beauty.

The Lonely One said:

Actually David Biespiel's take on it reminds me a little of Richard Wright's A Blueprint for Negro Literature. Both of which, by the way, I think are bullshit attitudes. Okay, so I'm making a judgment. Too bad. Fuck David and Richard. Call me a James Baldwin groupie, but I much preferred Everybody's Protest Novel. And I think Baldwin writes circles around Wright. But then again, I am a groupie.

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wow...I think that Richard Wright and James Baldwin were both brilliant but...just writing differently...Wright's "Native Son" is untouchable in my book but...I think as to Wright and Baldwin (who, in my book was a tad too prone to rant, ie, "The Fire Next Time") neither compare to Ralph Ellison...so, maybe I'm a Wright/Baldwin groupie...once removed

but, however you slice it...these three men put their stamps on American literature....and how this relates to poetry I don't know other than the fact that, like many poets, a lot of folks don't know about these three men either and how they changed the face of African American culture, etc...so...cheers to them and yes...to poets and poetry and all that gooey stuff they write about that I love so much

Why does poor old poetry always get used in articles like this? We're not political enough, we're not concerned enough, we've betrayed the common reader, we're too academic, we're too intellectual. Whatever they think we should be doing, we're just not doing it enough.

Moving a human heart in a stanza isn't easy. Anyone who thinks poets should be more political is welcome to pick up a pen and try it for themselves.

If you read "Native Son" as a protest novel then, okay...if you agree with Baldwin that the character in "Native Son" is a descendant of Uncle Tom then, okay...but that's the beauty of this all isn't it? I read "Native Son" as a tragic story of a kid who finds himself in an untenable situation, who lives by fear because he has no choice but to live by fear...it's beautiful in its painful represenation of that life, a life that could not have been differently lived in the eyes of the main character BECAUSE of the fear he had, fear that evolves into a sort of hatred

"Black Boy" by Wright, IMO, is a better example of the "hatred" that Baldwin goes on about but, why split hairs here? With poetry or prose I agree, it should represent life but, with that representation, shouldn't there be an acknowledgment that some, like Wright perhaps, reject the same thing. It's all part of this "life" we want poetry to examine and extoll.

Does anything matter?

I choose what matters -- to me.

I do not place my identity, or my values, in the hands of others.

political. and poetry. should not ever. be said. in the same. sentence. like, fuck, man. hello!

There's a lot of stuff in this world that some pundit will say doesn't matter.

God save me from a world where everything matters.

(eta: If everything matters, then nothing matters.)

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~Novalis

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. ~W.B. Yeats

To have great poets there must be great audiences too. ~Walt Whitman

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. ~T.S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1919

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes. ~W. Somerset Maugham

The poet... may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather. ~Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination, 1950

Poetry is nobody's business except the poet's, and everybody else can fuck off. ~Philip Larkin



So I'll just

Check out the number of Poetry websites and number of Poetry Slams advertised on the Web and then try to calculate the number of lyracists that are currently out there who have been recognized as poets, (not to count the millions or more who been writing the songs with more questionable lyrics) then, consider the number of suckers that Poetry.com drew in over the years.

The Colleges and the majority of Literary Magazines and Contests may have lost touch with the common man but Poetry itself is alive and well in all the venues listed above, (although the quality of such might be questionable at best, ranging from Doggerel to Verse, because most amateurs don't understand the necessity for craftsmanship) but it will never die as long as men desire to express themselve in Poetry and/or Song and believing criticisms lodged by any kind of non-Poet, and even by some of those who consider themselves Poets, is foolish at best.

JRH

The blog post referenced, as well as the responses in this thread, question whether poetry matters, with an American filter on the discussion. As Jim Hoye points out, the energy and effort being put into poetry, evidenced by web sites, readings, performances, writers groups, and discussions, indicate that poetry still matters to the common person. Perhaps not as much as it did at one time, but yes it still matters.

In the bigger picture though, as measured by the percentage of published works sold that are poetry, poetry is an art with shrinking influence in this nation, perhaps in the world. The blog suggests two possible reasons for this:

1. the subject matter chosen by poets
2. poets have diverged from their potential audience

I don't know for sure about number 1 (though I expect some truth to it), but I believe number 2 to be a valid reason why the influence of poetry has waned and continues to do so. Most modern poets care not a whit for their audience, believing poetry to be "self-expression" or "inspired", never to be reworked with craftsmanship in mind. The audience has taken note of this and said: Feel free to express yourselves, modern poets. But don't expect me to waste a dime of my limited disposable income on your self-expression that doesn't speak to me, doesn't inform me, doesn't entertain me, doesn't insprie me.

Poetry does matter. As practiced by most practicing poets, it just doesn't sell.

NDG

Like all things --it only matters to the people who care.

Human need for beauty?

I'll timidly offer my opinion, as someone who isn't a devoted poetry reader and cannot write it worth a damn:

Poetry damn well does matter. In fact, I think it's often the best way to express yourself, and the ability to distill whatever you want to say or convey -- whether it's beautiful or ugly or political or something mundane -- into a poem is an ability that I admire greatly. The smallest stanza sometimes has a heft that puts to shame the weightiest novel. Just my two pence.

Does poetry matter? Two experiences come to my mind. I consider myself barely a poet, but in at least two instances, I believe my poetry mattered.

About fifteen years ago I was Christmas shopping at a local mall. I was paying for my purchase and when the clerk, a young woman in her early twenties, gave me my change, she said, "Don Obiwon (a name I used exclusively when I was teaching religous education to Confirmation students), I've been wondering if I was ever going to see you again so I could thank you for your poem, "The Golden Carousel". After you gave it to us (the Confirmation Students) five years ago, I taped it to the back of my bedroom door, at home and when I was away at college. I read it every day before I left for my day. I still do. I find as much inspiration in it now as I did when I was a teenager. Thank you so much." To be honest, I wasn't sure if I even remembered this particular girl, but she remembered me and my poetry.

The second case was also a young lady I taught Confirmation classes to. I knew she struggled throughout high school, but she managed to get accepted into college, something she was very proud of. For her high school graduation, I printed a copy of a poem of mine titled "My Prayer for Strength" and I framed it and gave it to her. Several years later, one of my daughters happened to run into her somewhere, and she asked my daughter to tell me that she kept that framed poem on her desk in her dorm, and whenever she thought she wouldn't be able to make it through her studies, she read the poem out loud, and it helped. She graduated and the last I heard, she is now a mother and an elementary school teacher.

I don't believe these are isolated instances. I believe poetry, like so many other things created out of sincerity and love, matter to people, and can change attitudes, even lives. Frankly, I don't care a bit if anyone, or whole bunches of anyones, think poetry doesn't matter. I know it does.

dobiwon said:

Does poetry matter? Two experiences come to my mind. I consider myself barely a poet, but in at least two instances, I believe my poetry mattered.

About fifteen years ago I was Christmas shopping at a local mall. I was paying for my purchase and when the clerk, a young woman in her early twenties, gave me my change, she said, "Don Obiwon (a name I used exclusively when I was teaching religous education to Confirmation students), I've been wondering if I was ever going to see you again so I could thank you for your poem, "The Golden Carousel". After you gave it to us (the Confirmation Students) five years ago, I taped it to the back of my bedroom door, at home and when I was away at college. I read it every day before I left for my day. I still do. I find as much inspiration in it now as I did when I was a teenager. Thank you so much." To be honest, I wasn't sure if I even remembered this particular girl, but she remembered me and my poetry.

The second case was also a young lady I taught Confirmation classes to. I knew she struggled throughout high school, but she managed to get accepted into college, something she was very proud of. For her high school graduation, I printed a copy of a poem of mine titled "My Prayer for Strength" and I framed it and gave it to her. Several years later, one of my daughters happened to run into her somewhere, and she asked my daughter to tell me that she kept that framed poem on her desk in her dorm, and whenever she thought she wouldn't be able to make it through her studies, she read the poem out loud, and it helped. She graduated and the last I heard, she is now a mother and an elementary school teacher.

I don't believe these are isolated instances. I believe poetry, like so many other things created out of sincerity and love, matter to people, and can change attitudes, even lives. Frankly, I don't care a bit if anyone, or whole bunches of anyones, think poetry doesn't matter. I know it does.

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I loved this story/ies. You should send them in to Chicken Soup for the Sad Girl's Soul.

Poetry is my heart and my soul. I write it for me and me alone. It matters to me.

Yes, Don. Poetry can change lives. It is the most personal form of written expression man has ever created. I'm glad that your poem made such a profound difference for these young girls. That is a gift, my friend.




Mike

I'm not a fan of confessional poetry - or rather, I should say, devoting my diet of poetry to confessional works. I like poetry that tells stories - I find it preferable to prose in this respect for some odd reason. Maybe that's what the author of the article is trying to say?

I would have committed suicide if it wasn't for Poetry.

I love the way it makes a beat and sure I write primarily for myself but that doesn't mean I want to create drivel ( a lot is tho).. what is important is the way, as children, we utilise the rhyme factor of language to help us learn, even the abc.. won't u come and play with me. It's a form of expression whichever way u look at it and will always matter whether one recognises that or not... imo of course ;-D