Two recent statements by poetical cognoscenti

One is by Paul McMenemy about English teachers.

` The vast majority of English teachers, like the vast
majority of everyone else, don`t really know anything
about modern poetry other than they are pretty sure
they don`t like it`.

The other by Roger McGough about poems submitted
to a poetry competition. that rhyme was a rarity and
that politics did not engage our poets, who did not
cry out against poverty, injustice, migration, and global
warming.

Which of the two is the most portentously disastrous
for the future of English poetry?

Difficult to judge really as both statements need context.

Why is it that English teachers are seemingly uncaring of modern poetry? Why isn't the average poet of today engaging in politics and choosing to rhyme? These are the real questions you need to get to the root of.

If I were to give an answer I'd say the former could be worse. If newer/more modern poetry isn't introduced about and discussed in classrooms then there could be a stagnation of ideas by aspiring poets, who may just wish to replicate the 'classic' poets in a newer style.

How 'modern' is 'modern', please, for the purpose of this question? Are we actually being asked for an opinion about the attitude/s towards 'contemporary' poetry?

Cynthia,
Welcome... He actually said `modern`...But I reckon he is talking about style rather than date.

I think the remark about teachers (which I experienced at the Uni myself) is by far the most serious. They taught the so-called `canon`but not enough about the how and why of it. So far as the modern stuff was concerned their faces just seemed to go blank. I never came across any attempt to compare or cross evaluate the two types together.

I wonder...is it really an artistic sacrilege to take a poem to pieces and investigate how it is achieving (or not) the purpose it is aiming for?

I wonder what everyone thinks?

Depends on how you take it apart, and why. I don't think any poem can be reduced simply to its 'meaning' in terms of (usually) a prose explication of what it's about. Which is one of the problems with a lot of 'political' poetry: so much attention paid to the message, so little to the medium.

Poets are not always the best people to ask about what a poem means; not only are they usually not there to ask (being either dead, or in another part of the world), but while they may recall the inspiration, and have had something definite in mind when they started, the process of creating the poem can lead them into interesting places they are not always completely aware of.

A lot of teachers don't understand poetry because they're too busy looking for easy explanations of what it 'means'. That's not even that possible with fiction, where there is at least a story or plot. Without quite a long essay about the symbolism and images used can you even tell me what Keats' Odes are about, or even the Songs of Innocence and Experience by Blake that on the surface seem so simple? Modern poetry is not less difficult that that.

This is what I think, re Roger McGough on politics in poetry (which may be extended to music too?). Most adequate poets have spent some time learning about the craft and the worst crimes you can commit as a poet are, supposedly, show don't tell, or worse, being dogmatic. By this, I simply mean, telling another what to think. So, we have this conundrum, do we sit and accept the glib Tory BBC and media, or speak out? If we do speak out, what do we say? It is a bit like Edwin Starr saying, War, what it is good for, absolutely nothing. We all agree with the sentiment, but kind of think, well Edwin thanks but I knew that already. But this is the choice we have to make with politics in poetry, we say what we think is obvious, and we give our political opinion and we have to tell, not show. The thing is, with TV shows like Benefits Street, which demonize the working class, we have to fight back and we have to break the poetry rule book. If you ask me, it is too many people showing, not telling in poetry competitions. Also might be worth mentioning (and it has been said elsewhere) the poems McGough read were sifted. Who is the arbiter??

You'll have to do better than this, Harry, if you want me to understand the question!

John,
My main point is the absence of comparison and cross evaluation between the old - metrical - styles and the modern free - or un-metrical - styles of poetry, using the most highly regarded examples of each.

A university would seem to be the right place to do it, but I`ve never heard of it being done in a university.

I repeat: as a comparison and evaluation of styles

I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Not sure what you mean by 'style' here; do you mean 'form'? 'Style' seems to me to be a much more individual thing.

If you do, then I think Derek Attridge might be the man to look up.

Also, Prof Robert Shepherd is currently writing a book on form in 'linguistically innovative poetry'.

Steven,
I meant metrical versus free...I took some time
sussing out Attridge from excerpts on the net. His points
about the connection between his `ideoculture` and
what Eagleton called `Ideology` are discussed more lucidly
in the post structuralism section of Eagleton`s `Literarary
Theory`.

It got really interesting (I love the actual words there on
the page in front of me) when he uses the first stanza of
Donne`s `The Sun Rising` as a sort of world changer of the
(literary?) `ideoculture` of it`s time.


BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

After suggesting that Donne was probably influenced
by his knowledge of the classical Juvenal, Martial Ovid,
and Catullus, He points to the differing line-lengths,
versification, the stresses and the inversions of this
poem as an example of what he calls `otherness` and
`Alterity` .

Apart from the slight eccentricity of the line-lengths
the form of it is not so revolutionary (it even rhymes)
and although it might not have been very `marketable`
His fellow poets knew it`s value (particularly the value
of what could be called his challenging poetical cheek.)

I like Donne (as a much `niftier` Browning - like kind of
thinking poet) but I fear that Attridges points might be
taken as applauding the beginning of what has turned
into the `free` form of the present day. And that words
like `otherness` or `Alterity` mystify the poetic craft far
too much.

'metrical versus free' presents it in confrontational terms - and I think that would be likely to generate more heat than light.

The biggest assumption for instance here is that 'free verse has no meter' which is rather like saying 'jazz has no tune.' It does; it's just constructed rather differently than say a classical tune, and it moves away from and toward a traditional tune depending on how improvised it is. It might manipulate several meters in one poem; but it isn't without meter.

And 'free verse' is such a catchall phrase that I'm not sure it's even useful to describe a lot of the poetry I like (or even write.) There is a difference between poetry that use already set forms and those that 'create the forms as they're going' as it were; but it isn't a clear either/or. Is Arnold's Dover Beach an early free verse poem? Are they KJV Psalms translations free verse? What about prose poetry? etc etc... Is Hopkins moving towards free verse?

Incidentally, my objection to much rhyming poetry is not that it's rhyming, but that that's all it seems to do (not the best like Donne.) Enough attention isn't being paid to such things as rhythm and syntax.

I don't feel very qualified to enter into this discussion but can actually understand a little of what Steven is saying.

I rarely write rhyming work as very often the need to rhyme severely restricts the words that are available for use.

I would suspect (opinion only) that this is one of the main reasons that rhyme has fallen by the wayside somewhat.

However if one listens to Dylan/Cohen et al who use music to provide the rhythm for words, it is possible to get away from rhyme in the verses.

I'd love to know (or perhaps not) what it is that I write as I don't think about classifying it when a piece is completed. Perhaps it's just called crap!

Lay off crap, Sherwood. I can do without the competition.

Crap!
Fellers you haven`t lived (look up some of mine)

I give place to no one!

A poem is a communication, introverted or extroverted. It has to have a reason to exist; therefore, IMO, it needs a plan. A form. A shape. Words are chosen from the brain, and that organ is the ultimate organiser. Nothing comes down the pipe but that the writer summons it. So, every poet can claim 'form' by hitching words together. But if the result is simply unfathomable to anyone but oneself, then don't bother other people with it; the 'form' is too individual.

And I'm done blathering.

Going back to the original post, I'd say McGough's criticisms of the poets entering these contests shouldn't be brushed aside. There is something in it.

It may be the case that a lot of poets today do not associate poetry with politics/societal issues as they are too fixated on the classic poets and the classic subjects (love, nature etc.) mixed with a new kind of aesthetic. The many platforms of social media I think are partly to blame. There seems to be a wedge driven between the conscious political campaign aspect and an academic set of sorts, who approach things objectively and critically rather than with the fire of moral outrage.

Back in the 60s/70s you needed to scream to be heard. The decline of protest poetry may equate to the ease of airing one's voice online; everyone is talking about these issues in some shape or form and on some kind of platform, and the political spotlight has thus somewhat shifted away from what the poets are saying, with some high-profile exceptions.

About meter and free verse

I was comparing the eccentric poetical form of Donne`s
lively and hyperbolical `size` in his `The Sun Rising` with
the dull and jog-along, controlled blank verse manner in
which Shakespeare appropriately treats Goneril`s - also
hyperbolical - words of love to her father in Lear.

THE SUN RISING

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, “All here in one bed lay.”

She’s all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

LEAR

Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e'er loved, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

When I realised that that I was using the line set-up
of the 1635 edition and that -though the numbers of
the lines and their initial spacings are the same in all
three stanzas - (and, IMO, Donne`s poem is `rescued`
by the rhyming) I was struck by the impression that
Donne`s poem has a kind of metrically end-controlled
free-verse `feel` about it.

I apologise for the length of this, but what does anyone think?

I mean the 1635 edition of Donne (which I am assuming would have been his own set-up of his poem)

I see that the original typography of the Donne poem has reverted to modern. But, anyway, the `free -verse` feel was probably more in Donne`s cheeky metaphors than the form.

A minimal example of what I was trying to say would be something I tried myself some time ago:

I wondered why that set
Of Mediterranean sky
Was domed between these whirls of weather we get,

Why - through the jibs
Of the low oaks - the sun-shafts
Kept digging me in the ribs,


Why I could feel
The shock of spring seas pounding against a far coast
Vibrant under my heel –


The sudden toil
Of all kinds of coming-alive things
Stirring in the soil.

The metrical control is in the two lines of rhyme letting the middle line of free do almost whatever it likes...A sort of sandwich between, rather than an end form of metrical control. (I haven`t the foggiest idea of how to expand it)
Has anyone else?

Whilst this blog is itself a demonstration of the numbers of people writing poetry but MacMenemey`s words about
vast Majorities not liking modern verse have an ominous ring about them.

I think Cynthia`s last contribution to this thread puts the whole thing in a nutshell.

Blimey, where is everybody?

I know I`ve hogged this a bit on form (who was that that
muttered y-e-e-es?)...But McGough also said:

`that politics did not engage our poets, who did not
cry out against poverty, injustice, migration, and global
warming`

Peter and David have given their views about this.

I would say that these things are poetically dealt with these days by the rant.

Is this the best way to deal with them?

I've never liked much the term 'free verse.' No vers is libre if it wants to do a good job as Eliot would have it.

I think it's partly down to improvisation - Donne's work compares interestingly to the composers of his time, who used complicated counterpoint and arrangements in their songs. Maybe an area of study for someone?

Whereas it might be interesting to read some of the early free verse pioneers over a background of early jazz & blues. It's just a thought...

These days, of course, there are all kinds of musical palates to choose from - punk was a big influence on ranting poets like Atilla the Stockbroker & Seething Wells. I listen to a lot of contemporary jazz so though I wouldn't call myself a jazz poet I wouldn't be surprised if there is some influence in the way my poems are made.

I liked, by the way, the improvisational nature of those few verses you posted.

As for politics: a poetry competition isn't really the place I'd send anything particularly political anyway, so I wouldn't expect it to be in the entries. I don't much like ranting poetry; but I think there are better ways of dealing with politics in poetry. Read for instance Tony Harrison; not my favourite but certainly has politics in it.

I like to improvise and I like jazz. I like to rhyme where it works, and try as many other ways to sew the poem together as I can manage, so it has layers of meaning to reach different people, but I am not analytical when I am writing. Only when I am reading, later.

I have just read the original question which I failed to address last week.
I think 'modern' poetry as introduced by Ezra Pound, based on the poetry of HD and Pound's elaboration of ideas about how modernism should be applied to poetry, should be left in its century old wrappers for the moment. Those who espouse poetry today have a vast range of styles and formats to choose from, and can attend groups and classes and workshops, take degrees in poetry and MA courses, to learn the multitude of possibilities of putting words together to please the ear and the eye. They don't need to follow Ezra, any more than they need to follow any other self opinionated self appointed guru. Modernism should be given a well deserved rest until people come along who want to revive it.

When I were a lass, there weren't no creative writing classes, and poetry was something hallowed and sacred produced by geniusses mainly male, who were not given to writing about the stuff of ordinary life. I was told very firmly that women cant write good poetry but I wrote good poetry and sod 'em.

I like what I produce when I go to poetry workshops. I think most poets write in spite of the education system, not because of it. Its no good telling people how to write, You can tell them how other people have written, but then you have to say, now get out there and do it differently.

Without modernism I wouldn't be writing. Without modernism I would be disgusted with poetry and its dull oldfashioned prettiness. All traditional poetry is good for is advertising jingles.

Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein and Charles Reznikoff and HD and all freed poetry from the shackles of Victorian moralism and "it's-not-poetry-if-it-doesn't-rhyme" prison cells.

In the process, they freed language and led to some of the greatest writers and poets of the last and current century. Without modernism poetry would have become about as important as basket-weaving. And no doubt the BBC would have made it into a series so that hipsters could think they were in contact with the earth or beard wisdom or something.

Modernism is poetry. The rest is bollocks.

The problem here, Stephen, if I may be so bold, is that you create a simple dichotomy- Modernism versus the rest. That is not reality. The fact that Ezra chose to describe HD's poems as if they represented a completely new approach to poetry, and then link her approach to those of others and give them a label of Modernism does not mean that is reality, HD and others moved away from rhyming the end of the line, which had been done to death by the likes of Swinburn, but others did so too. The lack of inventiveness in late Victorian poetry is no excuse to make out that without Ezra this would have gone on forever.
There is a similar lack of inventiveness in poetry that has no rhymes and no rhythm, as anyone can see looking through the poetry blogs. What matters is producing something worth reading. All kinds of forms and techniques are available, and poets worth reading may use any. If Modernism is every form of poetry that does not rely on end rhyme and regular rhythm, then it is not a form. It is just poetry with a few forms ruled out. Ezra did not claim to include everything in his idea of modern poetry.
Modernism belongs to 1915, not 2015.

Modernism belongs to now. Modernism continues in the best poetry being written now, by the likes of Robert Shepherd, Geraldine Monk and a whole host of others. And it's not just to do with lack of rhyme, it's to do with an attitude of writing the future of language, not living constantly in the past as if that were something to be celebrated.

Modernism is T S Eliot, William Carlos Williams, David Jones, Basil Bunting. It's also Roy Fisher, Maggie O'Sullivan, Peter Riley, Denise Riley, Elaine Randall, Tim Allen, and a whole host of others.

It's a living thing. It lives in all kinds of places and among all kinds of people, not just in academies and universities. It's like jazz, constantly changing, rearranging the language into new shapes.

The kind of dull fustian that you get from the likes of Armitage, Duffy and co it is not, however. It's not always pretty and it's not always nice, but it's been making it new since 1915.

Of course, in a sense, Modernism as a movement ended with the deaths of its first protagonists (sometime in the sixties) and what follows after (the Objectivist poets, Black Mountain poets, San Francisco Renaissance, Dadaist, Surrealist, New York Poets, the various movements in Europe, Latin America and around the world, including the British Poetry Revival 1960-75, the Linguistically Innovative poets of the '70's to now and many young experimental poets operating all over the world now) are drawing on that legacy, rediscovering the forgotten of the past such as Gertrude Stein and Mina Loy.

But the spirit of modernism is very much alive and kicking.

MacMenemy said:

` The vast majority of English teachers, like the vast
majority of everyone else, don`t really know anything
about modern poetry other than they are pretty sure
they don`t like it`.

I think he is right. This means that the educators of the
future are pretty sure they don`t like it (not to mention the everyone else)

Plenty of folk - including the educators - absolutely loved the old canonical stuff, so what`s gone wrong?

Surely this is an extremely serious situation for the future of poetry?

It doesn`t really help us to call stuff like `The Red Wheelbarrow `Poetry` and the rest (`Kubla Khan`?) bollocks.

How about sticking up a couple of the best of each against each other and comparing. (from dead authors so there is no one to be offended)

By the way...hooray for signs of life up here.

Why would The Red Wheelbarrow being a good poem make Kubla Khan bollocks? Apart from my somewhat negative outburst when told Modernism just existed in 1915. All I want is a form of poetry that isn't just another form of advertising.