Take an ordinary sentence:
“My cat hunts mice in the yard.”
Now cajole and blather the sentence:

“Pouncer on the prowl, in bushes near the drive-
Slinks, crouching low, ’till not a mouse is left alive.”

Stephen Colbert, eagle screeching and non chalantly egotistical nay sayer that he is…is my hero.

Poets would be doing themselves a favor if they took themselves a lot less serious and took the Colberts of the world a lot more so.

I get you now.

I’m not talking about poets who decline to be defined with a prefix (I’m one of these). I’m talking about poets who are very against other poets defining themselves, and speak self-righteously about writing “just poetry”. As if anyone defining themselves is being “political”, and as if by not defining yourself, you could possibly remain “neutral”.

One might argue that there are too many kinds of poetry to try to define with “schools” and “camps”. I would then probably argue that language itself already undertakes the impossible in this sense, in that it tries to attach words to things (there’s really far too much in life for any vocabulary to ever encompass).

I think the idea of “just poetry” is actually a signifier to the poet having well quite widely. It is just that this poet has not consciously chosen any particular ‘thing’.

Equate it to a musician liking various types of music. Many influences, but not prefering to be called “rock and roll” or “neo-jazz” or “jazz-hop”.

Transferring back to poetry — maybe this hypothetical poet doesn’t start a usual poem by following particular pre-systems, or begin poems by thinking, “This poem will be a pantoum following Olsonnian principles with Ashberry’s linguistic techniques [ and maybe a hint of Louise Gluck's ethereality ] ” — I exagerate, but still…

Maybe this hypothetical poet reads quite widely and likes some things and likes others and really puts more weight in the subconscious mind, less in “top down” thinking and more “ground up”. Inspiration. A poem popping into ones mind and then writing that poem, and allowing the poem to dictate itself. For the poem to “just be”.

Sometimes, the conscious ‘I’ gets in the way of the more powerful subconscious self. Much like how dreams are more raw and potent delivery systems to the energy of the universe, and the conscious-mind usually gets in the way of ‘the truth’ (whatever that may be). Initially. The conscious-mind helps decode the sub-conscious, so the process is not “top down” first.

I could be misreading your point.

And we are all hiding quite a bit. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a need to write a poem. Poems are where I hide things. Thoughts, feeling, nibblets of beautiful. Poems are just variously designed safes. Some are shoddy-made things. Others aren’t. None are ever unbreakable.

I don’t want to say that language is always coercive in intent, but in it’s “nature”. In a sense, language is used to put ideas, images, etc. into people’s heads that weren’t there before (and I stress the “in a sense” part). You ask someone to hand you something nicely, not always because you want to, but because it’s usually the most efficient way to get what you want. Language is always making an argument, ex”pressing”. It’s always “doing” something, never “passive”.

And perhaps can’t agree that it’s always coercive. We probably can agree that language is used powerfully and widely to coerce. My initial statement was more meant in that sense.

Obviously I’m not arguing that the Anti-school School of Poetry is racist (and I’m certainly not associated with any cliques, schools, or camps either), but the whole idea that there can be a “neutral” poetry is irresponsible. Anyone who says that their poetry is “just poetry” either hasn’t read enough, or is hiding something.

Poetry doesn’t so much need to be transparent as it needs to teach readers how to cope with the coercive nature of language.

Thanks for the Colbert link Rebecca.