I have to admit, I loathe most poetry and liken it to literary masturbation. Not that I have anything against masturbation, quite the opposite, but I don’t want to watch you do it nor see the aftermath. I do have a few favourite poets like e.e. Cummings but for the most part I find it quite painful and aggravating to read poetry. I’m rather self-conscious about what I read because on some level I feel that you can tell a lot about a person by what they enjoy reading. Before I met Her, my exposure to literature was shockingly minimal (hello Clive Cussler - and yes, that's "literature" and "Cussler" in the same sentence dear) but in the last 8 years I’ve spread my literary wings somewhat and have discovered a whole new world; however, poetry remains to me… distasteful. Of course back in the day, I, like every other depressed alcoholic in University wrote up a storm of metronomic heartfelt angst, but c’mon, that shit is timeless! Ahem.
Had you asked me two weeks ago who Allan Ginsberg was I’d have guessed that he was a lawyer. For those of you (all of you I suspect) who know his name I’m sure you’re shaking your head right now – either that or clicking on the first link that will get you out of here and deleting my RSS feed. Since then I’ve read Howl. Wow. It has sucked me back into that white pearlescent world of poetry. Don’t worry, I have no intention of getting back into writing it but I will be making an effort to read more of it (although there’s a certain arithmetic beauty to haikus that does appeal to me). Something about Howl is very real and tangible. It speaks of a world that was tolerated so long as it was mostly out of sight; a marginalized people. The very publication of the book resulted in charges being brought against the publisher for disseminating obscene material. A trial (quite entertaining in and of itself) ensued that resulted in a not-guilty verdict thus ushering in a new era in poetry and literature. It would be easy to enjoy Howl simply for what it did for literature but that would be to dismiss the work itself. I don’t have the vocabulary or literary-chops to delve into this poem and deconstruct it; hell I’m having a hard time describing why I love it, and I'm sure there have been more than a couple of dissertations on the topic already, so I'll leave that to better minds. The best I can do is say I’m feeling it.
So, what *does* this say about me? Oy vey. I’m pretty sure I’m not a disenfranchised, homosexual, Jewish poet who caught a wave that was later to crest and crash and become the free-wheeling 60s. Perhaps I’m a voyeur, safely peering into a world I could never hope to fear? Maybe I just love original poetry… but, really, who cares? Do you? I know I shouldn’t…
Peace!
Well done! Love it. I have trouble with poetry too. I tweeted something about that recently. Along the lines of "Say what you mean, fer god's sake!"
ReplyDeleteI read Howl a long time ago. Maybe I'll take another look at it. I think I liked it.
I think, looking at what Patti said, and what others have along the same line of thought, is Poetry does say what it means, but that you have to think about it to see what it means.
ReplyDeleteThere is a shit load of poetry in Lit Mags/Rags that truly are too clever by half, and mental/literary masturbation. I ignore that crap, because it begs to be ignored.
Ginsburg is a genius, but an accessible genius. His friend Kerouac, was also a genius but reading him gives me a headache if I do it for too long.
Some poets that I like and you may also are Tony Hoagland and Mark Strand. There are examples aplenty on the Intertubes that you can find via a Google or Bing search...
You are funny. And I have to tell you, I met Allen Ginsberg, in fact I took a poetry workshop from him. And honestly, I was not very fond of him, he was kind of mean. (And not to me, so it isn't because of that).
ReplyDeleteI love to write poetry, but I have to be in the right kind of mood to read it. But when you love a poem, you love it because it speaks to you, on whatever level. I say just go with it.
I adore Ginsburg's "A Supermarket in California" but mostly because it pays twisted homage to Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass is the kind of poetry that I cannot imagine anyone hating, and it proudly wears its own masturbatory overtones like a badge of honour. To me Ginsburg is channeling Whitman, sometimes succesfully, sometimes not. That's what gives Howl its in incatatory, hypnotic force: the ghost of Walt.
ReplyDeleteI wrote horrible, horrible poetry in high school. I pulled out my old journal recently for a blog post and revelled in my "deep thoughts" as an angsty 16 year old. I hated English in high school, they ruined my favorite thing, words, because we spent SIX WEEKS reading and analyzing "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and it made me not love words as much.
ReplyDeleteEveryone can love words, they just come in different formats for different people.
And I'd LOVE to read your response to this: http://www.think-off.org/
I love the comments and what they've added to my post. And does poetry matter? I love it(!) and will most definitely be working on a response. I've got 12+ hrs of flight time next week so hopefully I can bang out an answer then.
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