I suppose in a general sense, one takes poetry at face value. Either you love it or hate it or are indifferent to it. But it’s when literary critics start calling this or that kind of poetry “important” that I sometimes start to squirm.
It’s an odd thing really to be a critic or a judge of art. It’s a kind of quagmire. People DO art. They express something in word or music or paint and we listen and look and read and see what we feel when we are exposed to their work. The quagmire part is when some people tell other people what is “good” or “bad” art.
I will make up my own mind thank you very much!
I think rather than thinking of any kind of art as good or bad, I think in terms of the effects or the results of someone putting their work in the public view.
But back to poetry. The other day, I read on a lyrics page a song written by Eminem. While once in a while he made a clever rhyme, the overall effect left me with the impression that he was writing angry words without any restrictions. Now, this may sound kinda cool. Why shouldn’t we just write what we really feel or think? And I agree with that up to a certain point. But here comes the esoteric part of my thoughts, I will do my best to explain them clearly.
In social discourse there is the idea of “filtering” our emotionally charged expressions. Our mind is like a wild ass, enormously strong and stubborn, but when harnessed properly can take us to amazing places.
But this takes discipline. You can’t just jump on a wild ass without a bridle, unless you want to see some truly destructive things take place to you and the stuff around you ! This is the thing, letting ALL your unbridled thoughts out might be a very good thing to do privately, as a catharsis. But to do it publicly causes harm, in my opinion, the self- discipline that great art requires is missing. Anybody can do stream of consciousness stuff. Children do it all the time…. La la la la la la la la. Ad nauseum. I do it in my scribble book, but take my word for it, you should be thankful I don’t publish it on DearDiary and subject you to it daily! I do my best to clean it up, straighten it out, and hopefully make it make sense. It seems to me that in some semblance of order comes beauty. In the self-discipline, which is the restriction, comes revelation. And I will be the first to admit that it only takes a small amount of order. One can let a lot of restrictions go and still make something intelligible to others. I have one word to say about this kind of concept. Monet.
I will give you a real life example of art gone amok.
This is a true story. A friend of mine died in a motorcycle accident. It was tragic. He left a wife and 4 children behind. We were all stunned and numb in our loss. He was an artist and a poet. He used to meet monthly with a poetry group where they would have lunch together and read their poetry to each other. Well, when the memorial service was held for him, his poetry friends came and did readings. Some actually wrote specifically about him, but others just read some of their work. It was all going very well up until the end. This one man got up and read a poem he had composed probably years ago. Every other line had the “f” word in it. It was an angry diatribe against something, although I never could figure out what exactly. I am sure this guy thought he was very avant-guard and felt himself incredibly brave to say this stuff out loud in front of people. I thought he was pretty much behaving like a run of the mill jerk.
You might say, well, this was not the place or the time for such poetry, but it might be okay in some other setting. But my point is, when we grab a live electric wire, we get burned. We can even kill ourselves and others with this kind of raw energy. The rage poets think they are risk takers. I just think they are crude. It’s like having a bowel movement in public. Sorry for the imagery, but it’s the first thing that came to mind.
I mean, what is so “brave” about bad manners ?
I understand the broad spectrum of human experience and the complexities of expressing it. But there comes a moment when one’s psychological health comes into question. Hang around a shrink for a few hours and see how many times he might use the words, “appropriate behavior”. And lest you think I mean only approving of art that is “socially acceptable”, there is nothing wrong with doing something new. But is the new worthy? Or is it just shocking. Bad manners are shocking. Monet was new. Elephant dung on a religiously charged image is shocking. Digital art is new.
Back to words….
One has to wonder if anything useful comes of poetry that is like vomit.
Except to line the pockets of the creator with piles of money and his handlers with even more money. Our society is so full of nonsense that we think if one makes a lot of money, this fact outweighs the damage that might be happening to the soul of the artist and those who follow his or her work. Damage to our soul, our mind, our emotions.
Sure Eminem can set himself on fire with his raw, emotional, and unfiltered words, and singe the people who listen to those words over and over. But pretty soon it’s hard to drive your Maserati around when you are nothing but a pile of ashes.
I read a book by Jaques Barzun called “Dawn to Decadence”.
In it he discusses the history of art. He said that the great masters started out with the idea that art should reveal the purity of the inner soul.
If this premise is true, then we truly ARE living in the age of Decadence.
It is a measure of a society, what that society admires. Unfortunately we seem to be leaning toward admiring vast sums of money, and how that money is accumulated is of very little consequence.
Pardon the rant.