This space is for all the posts that could have been, but never made it to print.
That said, I've been thinking alot about poetry lately. I've been thinking about different opinions on what makes poetry good. There's a craft to it, that much is true. Definitely, definitely true.
I find it interesting that what constitutes a good poem changes from decade to decade, and also from century to century just to fit the times. I think a good concept contained within a poem, coupled with craft, keeps a poem warm and living beyond a decade or two.
That said, I've been thinking alot about poetry lately. I've been thinking about different opinions on what makes poetry good. There's a craft to it, that much is true. Definitely, definitely true.
I find it interesting that what constitutes a good poem changes from decade to decade, and also from century to century just to fit the times. I think a good concept contained within a poem, coupled with craft, keeps a poem warm and living beyond a decade or two.
posted by Heather O'Neill | 12.2.06
7 Comments:
I LOVE that scene in Dead Poet Society where the teacher (Robin Williams) has the students turn to the pages that define good poetry. He has them read it. Then he instructs them all to rip out the text and throw it away. "Rubbish," he says. "Poetry can't be dissected like a science experiment."
It's hard to know what makes a poem live on. No doubt it has to engage people at a deep level and continue to do so in a different time, and all its elements - language, concept, sound, rhythm - combine to get inside a reader's skin.
It is interesting that poems that you might think would last aren't always the ones that do. It takes a long time to know. Larkin was a big name in his day, then he fell out of fashion, and now he seems to be coming in again. e.e. cummings was very popular for a while, but now he's right out of favour. Will he come back in again? It's hard to know.
I disagree with Robin Williams though. Of course poetry can be dissected like a science experiment, although a good poem will always be more than the dissected parts. Mind you, I hated that film's cloying sentimentality, and I can't stand Robin Williams. Sorry, Chuck!
No apology necessary. Just a difference in what each of us likes.
I think there's a danger when you put a poem on the slab and start poking about at the entrails that you lose sight of the whole piece. That's a real problem in schools where the students are encouraged to tick off the techniques a poet supposedly uses while losing sight of the entire function of the poem, which is basically emotional punch. It's like being able to correctly identify a spark plug or a fan belt while not recognising what a car is. This forensic approach to poetry has turned generations off the form. I'm with Robin Williams on this one.
Hey Chuck-
I agree to a certain point about Robin William's character tearing pages from the book.
My favorite part in the movie is when Williams's character has Ethan Hawke "sound his yawp into the world" and bring forth "the sweaty-toothed madman".
Poetry, for me, is both what is passionate inside, but what is also contained by good craftsmanship and form.
Rob-
I agree with you about what makes a poem live on.
What will be in a student's poetry anthology hundreds of years from now? Does success equal writing about truth, religion or metaphysics, or is it something else?
Do any of the old, old, poems that have made it into anthologies fall into a different category? What meaning can we glean from this?
Shug-
I agree in that we should consider a poem as a whole animal before we dissect it.
I do think a poem can be improved upon with surgery as long as we keep the whole of the poem mind when we bring out the the knife.
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