Americans Have Never Loved Poetry More—But They Call It Rap

William Haskins · Jul 2, 2014

Americans Have Never Loved Poetry More—But They Call It Rap

Poetry is no longer something we curl up to with a cup of tea. Instead, we take it in through earbuds. And America has never loved it more.

One hears a certain baleful cry regularly in writerly circles that Americans don’t care about poetry anymore. A widely read Atlantic piece by Dana Gioia in 1992 was a signature statement. Granted, that was a while ago now, but times don’t seem to have changed much: Comments in the wake of Charles Wright’s anointment last week as America’s poet laureate kept the lamentation going.

The drill goes that back in the day, kids recited Longfellow in school, but today poets are a tiny guild writing largely for one another. Americans, anti-intellectual and numb to the artistic as always, have become a people deaf to heightened renditions of their language.

It sounds right. I myself a long time ago even threw my hat in on the subject. But the whole notion is, in fact, nonsense.

To utterly naïve anthropologists sent to document the ways of Americans in 2014, one of the first things that would strike them is that this country is quite poetry mad. No, they would not find well-thumbed volumes of Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, and Billy Collins laying around the typical living room. However, they could not help but notice that a great many people under about 50 regularly go around listening to and yes, reciting poetry—rap, that is.

Rap is indeed “real” poetry. It rhymes, often even internally. Its authors work hard on the lyrics. The subject matter is certainly artistically heightened, occasioning long-standing debates over whether the depictions of violence and misogyny in some of it are sincere. And then, that “gangsta” style is just one, and less dominant than it once was. Rap, considered as a literature rather than its top-selling hits, addresses a wide-range of topics, even including science fiction. Rap is now decades old, having evolved over time and being increasingly curated by experts. In what sense is this not a “real” anything?

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Magdalen · Jul 2, 2014

Yea, this pissed me off when I read it the other day.

Rap is indeed “real” poetry. It rhymes, often even internally. Its authors work hard on the lyrics. The subject matter is certainly artistically heightened, occasioning long-standing debates over whether the depictions of violence and misogyny in some of it are sincere. And then, that “gangsta” style is just one, and less dominant than it once was. Rap, considered as a literature rather than its top-selling hits, addresses a wide-range of topics, even including science fiction. Rap is now decades old, having evolved over time and being increasingly curated by experts. In what sense is this not a “real” anything?

It's real, with a side of WTF and often just as much poetry as bob dylan or leonard cohen or walt whitman, but just as often it has been nasty shit.. .and then there's the world of "academic poetry" which seems totally opposite, in content/source/verbiage to every other frking perception of how to deliver and/or receive a poem. Go figure. If I read some beautiful words and they don't give me heat rash, hives or a feeling of repressed aggression, they are likely part or some-part of a poetry.

Why has poetry has gotten such a bad RAP?

Cereus · Jul 3, 2014

It's only news to people who don't like/listen to rap. With all due respect.

Ken · Jul 3, 2014

Some rap is cool. Cube, etc. Is it poetry? I'd say it has poetical aspects and is a subset of the category. That is not a slam or an insult. Just b/c it is not entirely this or that does not reduce its value. It is honestly idiotic IMO to try to pigeon hole everything into distinct categories. Accept and appreciate things on their own terms.

KellyAssauer · Jul 3, 2014

He lost me here:

Rap is indeed “real” poetry. It rhymes, often even internally.

because you all know that I consider this a poetry subgroup and call it verse. Yes, I know it's difficult. Yes, I know it has many forms. Yes, I know it's a darn hard thing to master, but I'm not fond of verse.

To suggest that one kind of verse is any more or any less poetic than another is ridiculous. The same restrictions and limitations apply to Rap as they do Jazz, or Country, or whatever niche of popular music lyric you might dissect.

I have no doubt that in some classroom on some campus this fall a hand full of 400 level English students will listen to a prof go on about the brilliance of Tupac... as much as I am certain that across the very same campus four times as many kids will learn the finer points of how to insert false controversy into a fluff editorial filler piece...

because that hasn't evolved at all over time.

Do your job.
Be a poet.
Ignore these morons.

kborsden · Jul 5, 2014

Does all 'real' poetry rhyme?

Rap is rap, not necessarily poetry. It is lyrical spoken word and originates way back before hip-hop... introduced into America by the slave trade, but seated in African story-telling tradition.

You could say this makes it kin to European troubadouric and bardic tradition, so yes, it is one of many poetic brethren. Poetry is an umbrella term for many streams of verse, imagist and rhythmical language... but to say one is more real than the other is down right ignorant. Especially when modern hip-hop has made something altogether different from where it began.

Just as all poets (in the common sense) have evolved their craft over the millennia and found ways to expand and merge their individual streams, rappers are little more than another representation of that.

Americans Have Never Loved Poetry More—But They Call It Rap

William Haskins

poet

Magdalen

Petulantly Penitent

Cereus

Few Nish; Learning About Thick Skin

Ken

KellyAssauer

The Anti-Magdalene

kborsden

Has a few recurring issues