Save Vs. Damned Redux

While she and DL are traveling, Stacey has asked me to blog for a week; I jumped at the chance.  The past month on BAP has been pretty fertile; I've particularly liked recent posts by T. R. Hummer, Katha Pollitt, and Elena Karina Byrne, along with DL's quote from W. S. DiPiero's notebooks, and his own teaser first paragraph from his intro to the new BAP anthology.  The quality of the writing has been high, thus rather intimidating, but I'll plunge ahead bravely and add some thoughts in various posts about poetry criticism, teaching creative writing, and random thoughts about contemporary poetry/poems. 

The thing that intrigues me about our poetry criticism is that we are so extreme, although when you think about it, why shouldn't our criticism reflect the cultural moment, one of the most divisive in our history?  I've long thought that Calvinism's basic tenet, that we are either saved or damned, not only outfitted us to be perfect little individual engines of capitalism, but also gave us our deepest sense of identity.  I'm no sociologist, but I'm guessing that most or all humans have a built-in sense that we're better than the guy or tribe down the block; still, they have things we like, so we trade with them, maybe we fall in love once in a while, or have festivals where we get drunk together.  We never let go our suspicions of them, nor the feeling that in some essential way we're a little bit better than they are; but we get along, make deals, coexist.  It's only in the three great monotheisms that the people down the block are traitors to the human, and absolute emanations of evil; and as Americans, our legacy is we're the most saved of all; chosen, in fact. 

It seems as if we're forgetting how to coexist; I'm not taking a high road here: I'm as bruised and bitter as anyone else.  But I was struck the responses to Shaindel Beers's poem posted here on 9/1, both in support of the poem and lambasting it. 

First things first: we can all choose to like or dislike this or any poem; the crux is, what will be our standard of praise or blame?  An email friend of mine--I won't reveal her name--wrote to me that the poem was "dull sentimental prose" and that the "two sane responses are shouted down in the town meeting."  That's strong, of course, but it holds the seed of discourse; it brings up aspects of the poem that can be discussed: perhaps the imagery is trite or unclear; perhaps the rhythms are too prose-like for some sensibilities; perhaps the manipulations of sentimentality are present.  What about the contributions of the "two sane voices"?  They declare the poem "babble," "not sufficiently literate," "adolescent," "hackneyed and vapid," "trite."  I think the difference here--the reason that these responses don't admit of discourse--is that they are of a convinced other side; there's no room for argument, discussion, here.  Beers is obviously damned, without recourse, let alone discourse.

And that very well might be, but the jury is still out if this kind of sneering is all we have as a rebuttal witness.  I think my comments here are mild, but real--that is, honestly offered; but someone reading this might demand that I take a stand on the poem.  I find merit in the poem, but I question some things.  For example, is the word "geniuses" in the first line ironic or not?  Much depends on that.  It might seem obvious that it is, but absolutely nothing in the poem indicates that the parents are even smart.  They seem utterly devoid of self-awareness, generosity, or entry-level skills of parenting.  Yet "smartness" seems a lynchpin of the poem; and the reverse--that's everybody here is stupid--doesn't carry the whole weight of the poem, either.  The word "But" at the beginning of the eighth line seems to take at face value the praise they offered to each other in letters; and the penultimate line seems to want the reader to supply an image of Richard Burton drunkenly quoting Shakespeare as he hurls his imprecations at the Helen Mirren mother staggering through a Plath-litany of disgust as she's handcuffed off to jail.  Too much of this poem has to be supplied by the reader; and if you invoke a meta-argument, and say it's a piece of damaged work emanating from a damaged consciousness, I just don't buy it.  This leads me to feel that the last line is, in fact, sentimental and manipulative.  On the other hand, I applaud Beers for trying to talk about important subject matter; and I suspect that that's the chord, or one of them, she touches in readers who are just as dogmatic as the naysayers in the comments column.  So much of our poetry these days seems "faked"--in the sense that W. S. DiPiero means, or I assume he means--that readers are hungry for language that addresses their real lives.   

Comments

[Laura Orem]

Thanks for filling in this week, Jim, and thanks for this interesting and thought-provoking post. Thanks, also, for providing us with an example of courteous but diligent criticism that does indeed leave room for further discussion.

I think that responses to poetry in general, and this poem in particular, are so vehement because poetry demands that very personal investment by the reader. We must bring ourselves to the poem; that's part of what makes poetry live. So when we are disappointed by a poem, we take it personally - because in a weird way, it IS personal.

I think this can be extended to all art criticism. "Disinterested" criticism is difficult, because the experience of art requires the reader to put himself/herself out there, or maybe "in" there. How can the critic step back and look objectively at a work of art? I don't think he or she can. But maybe the critic, if he or she feels the blood and the temptation to make pronouncements for the ages rising, should ask himself/herself honestly, why am I responding so strongly? What chord does this piece strike in me that makes me want to shut the conversation down? Why am I so pissed off?

Hard to do. But really, what is the significance of an unsuccessful poem? It isn't going to bring the halls of contemporary literature crashing down on our heads. It's just a little poem that maybe didn't work. All poets - ALL - write poems that don't work. It isn't worth being mean about.

Also - it might help for some critics to remember that a person wrote the poem. It didn't just appear on the page in a mysterious cloud of ink. Someone wrote it - and, at the risk of sounding like the mom I am, how would these critics like it if someone ripped their work to shreds in public? There are ways to say poems don't succeed without resorting to viciousness.

Finally, I would refer anyone who is tempted to dismiss any poet out of hand to go read contemporary reviews of John Keats' work. Or Whitman's. Or Dickinson's. You get the idea.

[mitch s.]

Both Jim and Laura make very good points here, and certainly give respectful attention to Shaindel's poem -- Jim to what it says, and Laura to what it is.

At my point in life I find it very uncomfortable to speak ill of anyone's sincerely offered work, especially if there are clear vulnerabilities. Glib writers -- not necessarily more talented ones -- eliminate the targets and create well-fortified, dead texts. In that case, "I withdraw my attention and think on Tom Thumb." (Johnson)

A few things to consider:

In "The Dyer's Hand," Wystan Auden states that negative criticism should not be undertaken as it's always showing off.

In "Chronicles," Bobby D strikingly discovers something interesting in virtually every artist he mentions, whether it's The Royal Teens or the Kingston Trio. What! He doesn't show contempt for the Kingston Trio? "The Lybian lion hunts no butterflies." (Jonson)

Similarly, Charles "Yardbird" Parker once took the stage to sit in with a band that was being ridiculed by the audience. He told the players, "I see what you're trying to do."

As we tap our comments on our keyboards, let us see what a writer is trying to do. Let us also clearly see what we ourselves are trying to do, and inquire if it is worthy of our calling. Good evening.

[Laura Orem]

Bravo, Mitch. Anyone who has ever tried to write a poem knows - or should know - how difficult it is to do. Creating art is an act of courage. As you say, the very least we can do is honor the attempt.

[Jim Cummins]

Thank you, Laura and Mitch. As you both know, in any given post there's so much to say, so little time; thanks for filling in some blanks and opening up other lines. I do believe that giving any poem serious consideration, even if one is critical of aspects of it, is a generous act.

[Stan Denski]

This truly needed to be said -- and the comments from Laura Orem, mitch s., and Jim Cummins form a model of what a healthy dialogue can sound like. Bravo, I say.

[Jim Cummins]

Stan, thanks & I hope you keep feeling this way about the next couple of posts.