We can all rest easy now. A judge ruled on what makes a poem.
In a twist that Alicia will appreciate, the plaintiff apparently argued that a poem in rhyming couplets is not a poem. The judge ruled otherwise, noting that “a poem sometimes possesses rhyme or meter, though this is not necessary.”
An old law prof of my husband’s, who is now a judge, told his class: “Lawyers and poets are the only people who read every word.” While a post on attorney-poets would be fun, I’m thinking more of judges, and judging, and how difficult it is to separate our enjoyment of poetry from judging and condemning. Most of us love a very few poems to distraction, and hate everything else. Critics who fawn over the Bad or dismiss the Good come in for even greater ire. Is there any possible corrective for this judging, judging, judging?
For me, one way to get out from under it is to go to these livejournal sites: Breathe_Poetry and greatpoets. (There may be more I don’t know of.) Their moderators publish a poem a day, like Poetry Daily and Verse Daily and the Writer’s Almanac, but instead of being professional editors with branded sites, these moderators seem to be students and enthusiasts just posting a (usually) contemporary poem they are taken with that day. Some they discovered in class, some through their own reading.
Calls for poetry to be more “accessible” leave me cold. But I like seeing what turns up on these livejournal sites because they may come closest to representing an “ordinary reader; the unknown interlocutor.” At first it was like tuning in to Top-40 radio: the poems don’t usually run to my taste. But then something turns my head, some bit of music: last week there was a string of poems from Ciaran Carson to Seamus Heaney to Les Murray (none of whom I can say I’ve been drawn to in general) that pulled me in on Breathe_Poetry. And a poem by Christine Hume with a terrifically twisty ending on greatpoets. The discipline of suspending judgment has introduced me to poems I would not otherwise have encountered through my usual channels. They really are like poetry radio stations, and the moderators are not judges but deejays.
As a music listener, I come across tons of music I don’t like. But other people like it. I’m always curious to hear in it what others hear; trying to imagine what others like in it. That usually doesn’t end up with me liking it, but it’s a side-step around the mere assertion of “I like, I don’t like.” It’s harder for me to do this with poetry, but a similar approach may be possible.
Posted By: john on November 9, 2007 at 10:26 amNot that there’s anything wrong with “I like, I don’t like,” either. In our culture, it’s what makes us persons.
Report this comment
I like the phrase “the discipline of suspending judgment.” And as a former amateur rock radio DJ I find many similarities between what critics do and what DJs do. The surprising followed by the familiar, the distant styles unexpectedly juxtaposed, the claim about history, influence or inheritance, the claim about analogy– all are frequent components of a review or essay about poems, and frequent components of any good radio set.
Posted By: Steve on November 9, 2007 at 10:39 amReport this comment
“[A] poem they are taken with” and “something turns my head, some bit of music” does indeed seem to point to the idea of pleasure. The way I tend to describe this (for myself) is, simply, a poem that’s “fun to read.” But this idea of pleasure, I have found, seems taboo in certain circles. Having been in my share of graduate seminars where the subject was poetry the idea or concept of “pleasure” is never given serious consideration. Once, someone (a poet) tried to introduce it in a seminar discussion and the “critics” in the class gave this person a look like she was from Mars. It was a moment I’ll never forget and which has been a touchstone of sorts ever since.
Posted By: Francisco Aragon on November 9, 2007 at 11:01 amWhy do we read (read them aloud to ourselve, others) poems?
Some read them for pleasure. Some because their jobs (prospects of getting a job?) depend on it?
All this reminds me of a wonderful interview I read yesterday in the Paris Review with August Kleinzahler. AK describes what it was like to have Basil Bunting as an instructor.
He was most unpopular among a certain ilk of student—those who wanted their own poems and their ideas about poems discussed (oblivious, it seems, to who Basil Bunting was). Bunting was content to just read poems aloud to them–poems he thought worth reading, of course. Not suprisingly, knowing what I know about Auggie, he relished every moment of it and considered this experience among his most, if not most, seminal experiences as a young poet.
Report this comment
Juxaposition gives much of the pleasure, doesn’t it, in reading and listening, and is one of the pleasures of editing, too!
Posted By: Don Share on November 9, 2007 at 11:05 amReport this comment
Francisco, I remember that anecdote from when Kleinzahler taught at Brown. I think he is an excellent touchstone for an aesthetic that emphasizes pleasure in language, image and music. And believe me, if/when I ever teach again, my syllabus will be all about aesthetic pleasure!
Posted By: Ange on November 12, 2007 at 2:36 pmReport this comment