A NEW V-V FEATURE!
June 2016
The Crusty Old Geezer Reveals What Poetry Should Do
For my first column I thought I would discuss what a poem should do. (Spoiler alert & summary for those in a hurry: the short answer is “anything it wants to!”) But in order to earn the handsome fee the editor is paying me, let me explain at a bit more length what I mean. Having recently retired from a fairly long career teaching writing and literature to college students, I feel I have earned my status as a COG—that’s “Crusty Old Geezer”—and perhaps it’s even expected of me. Anyway, here goes. The older I get, the less interested I am in big pronouncements and disagreements about poetry. Seems to me it’s usually a frustrating waste of time to enter these arguments. Still, you see such poetry commands all the time, issued confidently by poets and non-poets alike. Poetry should rhyme. Poetry should never rhyme. Poems ought to take political stands. Most political poems are bad. Adjectives are risky. Don’t use “I.” Never write a poem about poetry. No one wants to read your poem about young love. Poems about dead pets are verboten. A good poem must . . . . The best poetry is . . . . The poet needs to . . . . And on & on, down though history and thousands of textbooks, anthologies, journal articles, lectures, and more.
Clever folk are always making pronouncements about poetry, bemoaning its unpopularity, advising poets about the best or worst subjects, complaining about this or that tendency, defining and rooting out clichés, looking down their noses at whole schools of poetry while boosting other schools. But you know what? In the long run all that is wishful or pretentious hogwash.
I say that a good poem must do one thing and one thing only: it must find at least one reader who appreciates it. (Yes, your mother or spouse count.) In saying this, I have history on my side. An awful lot of people who are now considered great poets were ignored or mocked mercilessly at first. Look at any anthology of 19th Century American poetry: which two poets will you find represented most generously? Why, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, of course, the Dad and Mom of American poetics. But what about a similar anthology published in 1890? Very likely these two certified geniuses would be absent. The big names back then were poets like Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, and Holmes. It was simply obvious to everyone. Ralph Waldo Emerson, after praising Whitman’s first book extravagantly, had second thoughts, and eventually omitted his work entirely from an anthology he edited. Likewise, a prominent literary figure of her day not only advised Dickinson never to try and publish her poems but, after her death, went ahead and published them himself with his own improvements. True, it took both Whitman and Dickinson a long time to find their readership. But these days their reputations have entirely eclipsed that of a poet such as John Greenleaf Whittier.
Fierce opinions are common among poets, editors, and teachers, of course, and as a card-carrying COG I hold as many as you do—probably more. But poets do have a way of evading pigeonholes and pronouncements. A critic in 1948, discussing the title phrase of Elinor Wylie’s poem “Velvet Shoes,” made the wise point that “if the author had said, ‘Let us put on appropriate galoshes,’ there could of, course, have been no poem.” I gather that this critic found the phrase “appropriate galoshes” so obviously “unpoetic,” that no further argument was needed. Of course. But don’t ever say “Of course” to a poet. Because, wouldn’t you know it, poet David Wagoner immediately wrote a poem quoting this critic, and his first line—of course!—is “let us put on appropriate galoshes.” And you know what? It’s a fine poem, funny and sharp in its disdain for the Poetry Police who will always be telling poets what they should do. It is even a touching love poem.
None of the above should be taken to imply that this COG loves all poems equally, that I don’t have standards--which I suppose is the usual protest from those who belong to the Poetry Should crowd. But am I not worried about encouraging bad poems? Not really. I’m too busy trying to write a good poem to resent it if you write a bad one. (Or if I do!) And even if someone has committed a “bad” poem, and someone else loves it or even publishes it, who is harmed by this catastrophe? Not me. Poems that may not stand the test of time can still do some good in the world, even so. Now, I certainly do have my own ever-evolving taste and judgment, and am happy to tell you (at length!) what I like. (Stay tuned for more in later columns.) Tell me what you love in a poem, and I’m all ears. But inform me that Poetry Should, and these days I’ll start yawning. So as for what all good poems must do, I say your guess is as good as mine. I would even hope that you might surprise me, you genius you.
For my first column I thought I would discuss what a poem should do. (Spoiler alert & summary for those in a hurry: the short answer is “anything it wants to!”) But in order to earn the handsome fee the editor is paying me, let me explain at a bit more length what I mean. Having recently retired from a fairly long career teaching writing and literature to college students, I feel I have earned my status as a COG—that’s “Crusty Old Geezer”—and perhaps it’s even expected of me. Anyway, here goes. The older I get, the less interested I am in big pronouncements and disagreements about poetry. Seems to me it’s usually a frustrating waste of time to enter these arguments. Still, you see such poetry commands all the time, issued confidently by poets and non-poets alike. Poetry should rhyme. Poetry should never rhyme. Poems ought to take political stands. Most political poems are bad. Adjectives are risky. Don’t use “I.” Never write a poem about poetry. No one wants to read your poem about young love. Poems about dead pets are verboten. A good poem must . . . . The best poetry is . . . . The poet needs to . . . . And on & on, down though history and thousands of textbooks, anthologies, journal articles, lectures, and more.
Clever folk are always making pronouncements about poetry, bemoaning its unpopularity, advising poets about the best or worst subjects, complaining about this or that tendency, defining and rooting out clichés, looking down their noses at whole schools of poetry while boosting other schools. But you know what? In the long run all that is wishful or pretentious hogwash.
I say that a good poem must do one thing and one thing only: it must find at least one reader who appreciates it. (Yes, your mother or spouse count.) In saying this, I have history on my side. An awful lot of people who are now considered great poets were ignored or mocked mercilessly at first. Look at any anthology of 19th Century American poetry: which two poets will you find represented most generously? Why, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, of course, the Dad and Mom of American poetics. But what about a similar anthology published in 1890? Very likely these two certified geniuses would be absent. The big names back then were poets like Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, and Holmes. It was simply obvious to everyone. Ralph Waldo Emerson, after praising Whitman’s first book extravagantly, had second thoughts, and eventually omitted his work entirely from an anthology he edited. Likewise, a prominent literary figure of her day not only advised Dickinson never to try and publish her poems but, after her death, went ahead and published them himself with his own improvements. True, it took both Whitman and Dickinson a long time to find their readership. But these days their reputations have entirely eclipsed that of a poet such as John Greenleaf Whittier.
Fierce opinions are common among poets, editors, and teachers, of course, and as a card-carrying COG I hold as many as you do—probably more. But poets do have a way of evading pigeonholes and pronouncements. A critic in 1948, discussing the title phrase of Elinor Wylie’s poem “Velvet Shoes,” made the wise point that “if the author had said, ‘Let us put on appropriate galoshes,’ there could of, course, have been no poem.” I gather that this critic found the phrase “appropriate galoshes” so obviously “unpoetic,” that no further argument was needed. Of course. But don’t ever say “Of course” to a poet. Because, wouldn’t you know it, poet David Wagoner immediately wrote a poem quoting this critic, and his first line—of course!—is “let us put on appropriate galoshes.” And you know what? It’s a fine poem, funny and sharp in its disdain for the Poetry Police who will always be telling poets what they should do. It is even a touching love poem.
None of the above should be taken to imply that this COG loves all poems equally, that I don’t have standards--which I suppose is the usual protest from those who belong to the Poetry Should crowd. But am I not worried about encouraging bad poems? Not really. I’m too busy trying to write a good poem to resent it if you write a bad one. (Or if I do!) And even if someone has committed a “bad” poem, and someone else loves it or even publishes it, who is harmed by this catastrophe? Not me. Poems that may not stand the test of time can still do some good in the world, even so. Now, I certainly do have my own ever-evolving taste and judgment, and am happy to tell you (at length!) what I like. (Stay tuned for more in later columns.) Tell me what you love in a poem, and I’m all ears. But inform me that Poetry Should, and these days I’ll start yawning. So as for what all good poems must do, I say your guess is as good as mine. I would even hope that you might surprise me, you genius you.
©2016 David Graham