[Newspoetry] A Critic of Standard Poetry?

[DL Emerick]

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Perhaps late is this reply,
but songs of a popular lore
are wildly practiced poetry;
they speak vernacularly,
of what moves us far more.

I get tired of standards that tell me how I ought to feel about matters.

Elegant expression, deep and sensitive thought?  Please.  For that we have
philosophy.  Listen to what one song says: "You and me going fishing in the
dark..."  http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/f/fishinginthedark.shtml

Now, even in Wisconsin, I know they have fishing, but this song isn't about
fishing, of course, except in some metaphorical sense, that arises when you're
lying next to your loved ones, out on a lake shore, late at night, when the sky
is clear enough for the moon to shine down on the ruffling waters, and stars
glitter here and there, and so on and so on and yadayadayada, etcetera.

The song even gets around to telling us it's not the fishing that ever mattered.

Ah, so what's my beef?  Ah, it's the snobbery of poetry, as it's so often
"formally" taught.  All the intellectual cleverness, the erudite brilliance, the
contemptuous arrogance of the elite, who have specialized so much in the
practice of clever words and phrases, cool and distant, alienated and withdrawn
from the actual passions that most people -- the vast majority, the masses
themselves -- feel.

This is simply to say that the alleged "universality" of "truthful" poetry, even
when it follows the "detailed particularisms" as in the poetry Koosner
columnizes, regularly, is -- while moving to the elite -- hardly a matter of any
interest to 99.9% of the people in the world -- so esoteric is its speaking.

Take your five points above -- and apply them to why songs the people sing are
so popular.  They don't have to read them, for one thing -- they learn them
audibly, by hearing them sung, as poetry was once practiced, thousands of years
ago.  You catch the words, by ear -- a practice that relates, so I think, to how
poetry should be written: the poet himself (herself) should be trying to sing
what is to be said.  The words should take hold of you, as if the Gods
themselves put you into a frenzy and make you want to dance by the force of
song.  If they seize the poet in just that way, then, possibly all those who
hear a poet will grasp his song as well.

You don't have to go into analytics, of how a song achieves its effects, combing
a fuller range of sounds than merely voice.  You don't have to guess at multiple
layers of meaning -- because, there is always at least one surface layer that
thoroughly grounds all the deeper or higher abstractions, the imagery itself.

You don't have to get into the poet's head -- it's the duty of a poet to get
into your head, to get beyond your eyes, into your ears, where his (her) words
will echo, vibrate, reverberate, live.  And, even, strangely, by kinesthetic
transfer, a poem shall find its rebirth, as vibrations in the throats of those
who follow the poem, and live.

In short, what I have to say of your proposals concerns your stance as to how
students ought to approach poetry: you're criticizing the audience, the
students, for failing to adhere to one kind of standard for one kind of poetry.

Perhaps, instead, you should develop standards that the audience applies, as to
why poems don't work for them.  Ask students to criticize the failings of poems,
to be speak for them, of their experiences of life in this world.  After all,
one standard for a critique is always the quite practical question, does this
thing (this poem, even) have any use to me, as I go about the days and nights,
living and sleeping.

And, some poems, let us say, dreamy as they may be, are just like sleepy
hollows, dark and scary places, full of terror, haunted by evil genius that uses
the force of song to degrade simple, true-hearts, by pretending to an elevation
they will never achieve.

Think of it: "You and me going fishing in the dark..."  It's what happens when
poetry does -- and we like it, just the way it goes.