Prose as a criterion for literary intelligence, because "poems can be faked"

“Some shy from putting prose out there because it’s a giveaway. You can’t fake it. It reveals quality of mind, for better or worse, in a culture where poems can be faked. Find a faker and ask him or her to write anything more substantial than a jacket blurb, and the jig is up.”

-- W. S. Di Piero, “From a Notebook” (in Poetry, October 2006)

Agree or disagree? Please comment (succinctly).

Comments

[Don Share]

Agree, natch.

[Stacey]

Ditto.

[Zach Wells]

Makes sense to me; haven't yet encountered a good poet who wrote bad prose.

[Sally]

hmm. "poems can be faked." Maybe this is just semantics, but a good poem and good prose both involve resonant language,writing that moves a reader. Like an orgasm. If you don't know whether you've had one...well...and then I guess they can be faked, but who is fooled? Who benefits? When you read a faked poem, do you feel that you've read a poem? Are you satisfied? I think not. And does it follow that if good poets write good prose, good prose writers write good poems? hmm. Jury still out for me.

[Lesley Owens]

I've read plenty of poems that felt "faked" to me, but very little prose that has felt similarly false (meaning prose that seems to have substance but lacks it under closer inspection).

However, this quote implies that poetry is cheap and easy and prose is more valuable, which I don't think is true. I think it's easier and more common to write bad poetry than it is to write bad prose, but it's also more difficult to write genuinely good poetry than it is to write quality prose. Perhaps this means that poetry should be the true criterion for literary intelligence.

[Marissa Despain]

Lesley I wouldn't equate "bad" with "faked". I think one could and, as for myself does, write bad poetry that isn't faked. Faked to me implies inauthentic.

[DL]

Thank you Sally, Lesley, Marissa, Zach, everyone, for these stimulating comments. I like the comparison of poem to orgasm (both can be faked, up to a point) and the distinction between fake and bad. Oscar Wilde wrote, "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling." Bt of an overstatement but very effective.