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Write What You Feel, September 18, 2006
In a recent issue of the journal Poetry, John Barr, President of the Poetry Foundation that publishes this prestigious periodical, wrote, "Poetry in this country is ready for something new." He points out that at the turn of the twentieth century, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot ushered in Modernism, which has dominated our lyrical poetic voice for nearly a hundred years now.
The time has come for something new, not just because change is inherently better, but because the choices poets made based on the tenets of Modernism have been played out and something fresh is needed to express the new realities of this world as it exists now. A new poetic voice is needed when "the art form is no longer equal to the reality around it." Old forms of poetry, particularly based on the romantic version of poetry that sprung up at the turn of the nineteenth century with Wordsworth is still being forced into classrooms while the vital poetry of the street, such as rap and the radio, such as radical song lyrics, are being pushed away from young minds by those who are supposed to be helping them navigate in the modern world. Something is amiss.
What the new voice of poetry will look like, or sound like, has yet to become clear, but that there is a poetic vacuum is clear. Early in 2006, the Poetry Foundation commissioned a study from the National Opinion Research Center to find out if the general public was open to reading poetry, and they found, much to my surprise, that the vast majority of American readers welcome reading poetry when they see it.
In many ways, poetry is perfect for our go-fast society. It is short, pointed, and illuminated by vibrant, catchy expressions, just the thing for people who are used to a sound-bite world. The problem, of course, is that they don't get to see poetry very often. Published poetry sells fewer copies than any other form of printed matter. Something is wrong.
According to Barr, one of the problems is that in the last 50 years, MFA programs have strung up all over this country sending out thousands of "certified" poets each reflecting the aesthetic of their teachers, the Modernists and their disciples. Good poets come out of these programs technically better but aesthetically straight jacketed. Barr opines, "Will the next Walt Whitman be an MFA graduate? Somehow that seems hard to imagine." Barr reminds us that our most innovative poets were not academicians at all. T.S. Eliot was a banker. William Carlos Williams was a pediatrician, and Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive. Barr himself worked on Wall Street most of his career.
New ground needs to be broken. Renegade practitioners need to be folded into the embrace of accepted American verse and new avenues need to be opened to invite readers back in.
As a poet, John Barr has been expressing this sentiment for some time. As early as 1997 with the publication of his fifth book of poetry, Grace, Barr did what few white Harvard boys have ever tried. He attempted to write an entire 6-part epic in a thick black Caribbean dialect with humor and lots of ironic twists. Here are the opening lines.
Things unseen count coup on you. The ant, wid its nose
For necrosis try Ibn's toes, Ibn's ear, then turn away.
The mosquitoes, who bring me a bracelet of bites,
A ring of harm, find wid de radars on her feet.
Surviving yet another of her approaches in the dark,
She grapple, gravid, wid what it is to be Opcit:
Wid hairline legs grasp the braces of his body hair;
Wid friendly razor stir the pot of Ibn's ichor.
De rats dey disembark all night all appetite.
Now I am not here to say that this is the final word on where poetry is headed in the future, but you have to hand it to Barr for creativity. How long has it been since a major poet wrote a successful epic? How many MFA teachers would have told him to write about his own life not that of a person of another race, who lived in another time and place? Barr is at least attempting to be modern. Perhaps we should reach out as well?
There are thousands of new directions which we deny ourselves each time we write another sorry complaint about our most recent encounter with life's little battles. How many times do we need to read --or hear-- that old poem again? There are so many new directions we could choose. What about creative use of sounds or typography? How about using different line spacing or integrating images and words together? Hey, poetry is supposed to be CREATIVE. Let's start acting like it is still a field open to innovation!
It's not often that you encounter something truly new in poetry. Barr may not be the messiah of truly new American poetry himself, but in his brief article he has sounded the call to invite us to explore what a truly modern verse might sound and look like in the new, authentic twenty-first century that lies ahead.
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