I tend to feel as if poetry is currently dormant, as far as 'great' poetry goes.  It's in my opinion and in my opinion only that since the modernists like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot that poetry has gone into a decline. 

For one, I feel as if poetry is now viewed as a lesser literary form in that there exists less and less rules which govern the style of poetry and so a lot of people either don't take it as seriously in how they view poetry from an outsider's point of view, or the poets themselves don't take it as seriously.  But that is merely my opinion.

I think poetry has the potential to become great again or else can be revolutionized to where another genius pops up and brings a revival of poetry along with a new literary movement.  But in our utterly commercialized culture, what great poetry that is out there has to fight against more mainstream and commercial art forms.  And so, poetry gets the short end of the stick.


If I were to take a stab at putting my own individuality in poetry, I would do some of the absurd such as incorporating HTML coding, somehow, into my verse or else making more current cultural allusions or else incorporating some of my Lain-esque ideas concerning the effects of the digital age on society since that is a matter of great personal interest.

But I think with enough people breaking outside of the box, utilizing modern technology to alter how one presents their works (i.e. get a vocoder to recite one's verse.), and to rely on the idea exchange capabilities of the Internet would be the way to bring poetry to the forefront while also being taken more seriously by people in general. 

It's a little originality and a lot of marketing which changes things.  And nowadays, one needs a LOT of marketing to just get people to take the slightest note of a good idea.  But I certainly believe the potential is out there.  But otherwise, I would say the art form is under-appreciated and near decaying.  The people with good and new ideas and with high motivation and devotion can do something to make this a more respected art form again.

I'd like to say I have a deep appreciation for poetry, but to be perfectly honest, I don't. It's nothing against the medium at all--I used to write buttloads of it, mostly at gunpoint in my humanities magnet, but I must have been good because I got awards and was published a few times. The big shiny trophy I got for writing a poem about the Holocaust. I was grim.

I think the problem for me, which I might venture to say is an issue shared by a lot of people, is that poetry is a huge, dense, and uncharted territory area outside of English majors and people who have been into it for a long time. Literature is more accessible because unless you were born yesterday you at least know a few of the classics. Poetry just doesn't permeate the culture as thickly, so you just to make a greater effort to engage yourself in it. For example, I don't know where to begin if I wanted to start reading more poetry. I can't say for sure what I want from the experience, so I don't know who to refer myself to.

That said, if anyone wants to Youtube, download, whatever, there was a series a while back called Def Poetry on HBO. Mos Def hosted it and it was produced by the same rather popular black social philanthropist responsible for Def Comedy Jam in the 90's. Obviously presenters were frequently black, but they did an excellent job mixing up subject matter, style, and perspective. A few of the poems from this show have brought me to tears, and a few have made me damn near piss myself laughing. If anyone's interested I'll see if--actually here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pppZq45r-DY Sonia Sanchez, a poem about a woman who brings her child to a crackhouse. I watched this show with my family, we felt sick and were staring/crying by the time this was done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6kO6HLC0T8 Shappy, a poem about being a nerd. You'll need it after the first one. (You get extra points for getting every reference in this poem. Also, the style of his reading is deliberately copying another presenter from a previous show, FYI. Actually IIRC the poem is an overall Ode To sort of thing.)

Oops now I'm bouncing around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fhWX2F6G7Y Suheir Hammad, writing about post-9/11 back when it was new. This is the for serious one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C40EUMU3pFc Beau Sia. He's shown up a few times because he's hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmLE2bliXCI Taylor Mali. Later on this guy does a poem about being a teacher so I presume he's a teacher. I wish he'd been my English teacher in school because I'd have thought he was awesome.

That actually may be part of the problem for me. I love that show, I've been to a few poetry readings and loved the shit out of it...but like Shakespeare is for me, poetry may be something I see as a performance. I want to hear the person pour their words out and move me. This may be me being lazy so I don't have to guess at emphasis or whatever else, and in the situation of poetry I would like to work myself out of it--poetry I already know isn't required to be a performance. Plays, however...well I want to see a play, not read it.

That said, this was my favorite poem when I was a kid. I read it in class and loved it and forgot about it and then found it again, I believe thanks to Clarice. In retrospect I don't know what the hell we were doing reading this in 6th grade. I don't think most of the students got what was going on until the teacher explained it, but IT'S SO ROMANTIC.

Porphyria's Lover, by Robert Browning

The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me — she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!

Nikki GIovanni, Amiri Baraka, Fiona Apple, Jill Scott, hmm. The last two suggest to me that it's possible that the lines between poetry and music have gotten a little blurry. Which is fine, it was always a rather artificial distinction.

I do like a lot of modern poetry; I had bad experiences reading the classics when I was younger. Perhaps that also has something to do with it? If you have a teacher who teaches poetry not as an experience but as just another subject to cram and come up with an "answer" then there is definitely something lacking. When I would read some of the classics, we read "The Wasteland" in 11th grade but our teacher basically told us how to think and feel about the poem, and I never connected with it. No one in our class understood the references, but our teacher when he taught poetry, he taught it as something that was vital to understanding the world around us.
Which I agree with, because in some poetry you do find that sentiment of a moment, thought or sensation that may have not had just the words for, and yet it does.

Poetry as a performance, is also something that when I was in high school (and throughout college) made it anew for me. Part of the trouble with the classics (and I'm speaking for my particular class), was when reading it, the rhetoric was a barrier.

There was a program on NPR that had poets reading their works and they turned it into a book, but I'm not sure if they're doing that anymore.
Attending an "open mic" night is where I usually go to get the LIVE experience of a poem, because you can hear all sorts of things in audio that you may not necessarily catch in print, (intonation, rhyme, rythm).

The show you mentioned Gio, I used to watch a couple of those episodes and those poets were really good, I think the frontwoman of Otep made a couple of appearances.

In general, I connect to a poem when it's not afraid to go to a certain emotion and just get into the nitty gritty of it. Some poets are really good at capturing the ugly feelings people have, but don't want to share.


I remember in an English class, we had to bring in a poem to read aloud (our instructor was all about reading material aloud) and no joke, more than half the class brought in song lyrics (or they read Shel Silverstein) and often said "It's poetry set to music." But our Instructor argued, that the two are indeed different, but I have never been able to make the distinction, really.

edit: I was wondering and this is slightly off-topic, but I know we have several threads where forum members post poetry they've written, but do we have any threads where it's just poetry that we like?

Last edited by lex (09-17-2009 01:03:29 PM)

The novel really has taken over as far as mainstream writing/reading goes, but there's still good stuff out there and still a going poetry market.  Heck, HBO's poetry thing wasn't too long ago, was it?  Two, three years?

Nikki Giovanni, Anne Waldman, Jan Beatty... there's still some really hot folks working out there.  Amiri Baraka's still so badass the Patriotic Act had to stop one of his books (lest our poor little minds be snapped or whatever ).

(Anyone whose on my fb page is probably laughing at my participation in this thread, but I feel like a cheerleader for the moment, so.)

No Carol Ann Duffy fans? Or is she not so well-known Stateside? :S

Ahh, I found another one on Amazon (that I went to Barnes & Nobles and bought it immediately)

"Word of Mouth" edited by Christine Bowman, and even features Czeslaw Milosz amongst others.  But while I was at B&N, I didn't see "Good Poems" so I guess I'll have to special order that one.