ah, the question of too much poetry
“The new math of poetry is driven not by reader demand for great or even good poetry but by the demand of myriads of aspiring poets to experience the thrill of ‘publication.’ “
So says David Alpaugh (along with a lot of other thoughtful things) in “The New Math of Poetry,” published last month in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Read the article and let us talk. What say you?
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thank you and farewell As of May 1, 2010, Read Write Poem is no longer active.
In late May, an anthology featuring work from those who completed the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge will be published here and on issuu.com.
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You know, I never thought myself a cynic, but I read the full article and I find myself agreeing. It’s such an odd phenomenon, fueled now by the ease of online formats and POD publishing. When I first started writing poetry almost 30 years ago, there wasn’t nearly the excess of poetry programs in colleges. Now, it’s overwhelming. But to what end? Poetry is no more profoundly rooted in our culture than it was back then.
“Poetry is no more profoundly rooted in our culture than it was back then.”
I don’t know if I agree with you, Danika. Academic poetry isn’t more deeply rooted in our culture, but it might very well be that a deeply-rooted love of other-than-academic poetry is now visible.
Alpaugh’s term ‘embarrassment of trinkets’ not only applies to poetry but all forms of literature. It’s the age of five minute fame where everyone needs to feel famous even if though fleetingly This is evident in the number of tv reality shows.The standard is diminished but the output of poetry is great. This also applies to literature.I went to a new bookshop the other day and was appalled at the number of badly written novels for sale.I think it is a good thing that people are choosing poetry as a mode of self expression but he may have a point when he says that one cannot expect to be a performer if you play the oboe or violin without years of work whereas one can write some poems without any study and devotion and have a chap book published in a few months.We have a saying in classical music 1%talent 99%
perspiration.However the point he didn’t make was that this principle has never applied to the literary world.
I am excited about the fact that so many people are interested enough in poetry that they want to publish. Yes, it may be the fact that they want fame or acknowledgement, but at least they are writing it and keeping things alive. Maybe I’m just acting as devil’s advocate. Granted, there may be a plethora of poetry out there that isn’t the “best” but I’d like to think of it in terms similar to our justice system. It is better for one hundred poorly-written poems to be out there than to have one beautifully-crafted poem go unread.
Go poetry!
Is this some criticism, there are too many leaves in the world?
Or might we wonder that too many poets are consuming too many worldly resources? Too much paper, too much internet capacity, too much food? Perhaps reduce the number of poets by birth control? Yet I am daily impressed by the impossible breadth of the world as it is and has been for quite some while already. I’ll never get to even a fraction of the beauty abundant here.
And about publishing, I speak most pointedly from a very personal point of view. I care about conversation, about direct interaction, writers and readers both. Something as simple as a blog now satisfies that, and more than any supposed vanity of a book in hand ever could address. Who talks to a book?
But then I don’t care about poetry so much as art. I care about poems like I care about life. I trust to expression, intrinsically. Personally. One life will touch the few that it does, and so it is. Expression has never been about scale, not like that. So look to the night sky. Tell me if there are too many stars.
Last, I’d invoke Dale Favier’s article, “More Poetry” for this subject too.
Very interesting article, Deb, thanks.
I also went and read the whole thing, and then all of the comments (it took a while).
I knew about academe’s hold on things, and I think he’s right. There’s a lot of “stuff” out there.
What I wonder is how many real readers of poetry are out there?
How long is their attention span? How many lines (or words) can they study with a mouse-over on?