What the **** has happened to poetry?

When you ask someone if they like poetry, you will generally get one of three possible responses.

1. Oh GOD no, poetry is not for me. I hated it in school. (the majority)
2. Eh… I haven’t read any in a while. (virtually the same as 1)
3. YES, I LOVE poetry! (rare)

Not much else. Why does poetry, more than almost any other art form, garner such polarized (and polarizing) responses? Why is it such a threat to some and such a pleasure to others?

It doesn’t make sense to me. All humans use language, and all humans use language creatively, because that’s what language is — personal, flexible, versatile, adaptable to our various moods, needs, desires, ideas, beliefs, and all the rest. Poetry is a natural combination, or follow-on extension, of our innate drive to communicate what we observe and experience and our unique capabilities to do so, with Homo sapien nuance, complexity, and sophistication. And metaphor is at the root of our observational, communication, and thought processes. Metaphor reigns supreme. It is impossible to get through the day without using or thinking in metaphor. (I charge you to try it. As soon as you use the phrase “oh, I see” as an expression to confirm your understanding, you’re guilty.)

Barring the occasional accident while someone is reading a newspaper or magazine on the ride to work, not many people encounter poetry in their day-to-day lives. But we accidentally encounter music, dance, acting, film/ video/ cinematography, painting, photography, sculpture, other visual and plastic arts, and even other forms of literature all the time — if not on a daily basis, at least every few days or every week.

(To the counter-argument rap is poetry, I give you

“Broccoli” by D.R.A.M.:

Ain’t no tellin’ what I’m finna be on
I’m beyond all that f*ck sh*t, hey

Hey lil’ mama would you like to be my sunshine?
N*gga touch my gang we gon’ turn this sh*t to Columbine
Ice on my neck cost me 10 times 3
30, 000 dollars for a n*gga to get flee
I just hit Rodéo and I spent like 10 Gs
I just did a show and spent the check on my mama
When I go on vacay I might rent out the Bahamas
And I keep like 10 phones, damn I’m really never home
All these n*ggas clones tryna copy what I’m on
N*gga get your own, tryna pick a n*gga bone
Weight tip the scale, boy I had a good day
Metro PCS trappin’ boy I’m making plays
50 shades of grey, beat that pussy like Hulk Hogan
I know you know my slogan, if I ain’t ‘bout guap I’m gone
N*ggas hatin’…

Positively terrifying.

And to the counter-argument that, maybe not all rap, but at least song lyrics are poetry, here’s

“Closer” feat. Halsey:

Hey, I was doing just fine before I met you
I drink too much and that’s an issue but I’m okay
Hey, you tell your friends it was nice to meet them
But I hope I never see them again

I know it breaks your heart
Moved to the city in a broke down car
And four years, no calls
Now you’re looking pretty in a hotel bar
And I can’t stop
No, I can’t stop

So baby pull me closer in the backseat of your Rover
That I know you can’t afford
Bite that tattoo on your shoulder
Pull the sheets right off the corner
Of the mattress that you stole
From your roommate back in Boulder
We ain’t ever getting older

(…to be fair, I really like “Closer” as a song, for its catchy melody and rhythmic manipulation of syllables)

To the related counterargument that many people think that poetry is anything that rhymes: maybe that’s the case. But if so, you’ll also need to consider calling silence, “music” (sorry, 4' 33'’), and rolling uncontrollably on the ground, “dance.” I could be open to this, if the particular instance fundamentally challenged my understanding of the art form, as Cage did throughout the rest of his compositional career. But rhyming “Boulder” with “older” just does not qualify as, or challenge, my understanding of poetry, I’m sorry. But I digress.)

The point is, almost every other art form outside of poetry is somehow “cool” and cool to be good at and cool to make money at.

I knew poetry had a bad rap. But it didn’t truly start affecting me until I joined an MFA program for poetry.

When I first got to my program over a year ago, the remarkable human who admitted me asked something to the effect of, “So what got you into poetry? It’s a very unusual path.” And that struck me as both strange and disheartening, because this person is a poet, has written at least ten books, won a Guggenheim, Pushcart prizes, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and even started the very program, over 30 years ago, at the university I was joining. You would not expect that such a poet rockstar and role model would think to ask a beginner poet in her program, “why are you here trying to do this thing too?” You would hope that we would start off with the premise like, “Yes, you’re a poet! Okay great, let’s get to work.” I doubt that an expert ballerina, upon admitting students into her school or studio, asks them, “so this unusual thing of trying to master ballet technique…what made you passionate about it and convinced you enough to devote your life to pursuing it?” (But in this case, asking such a question might be more understandable, or even necessary, as pursuing professional ballet has greater physical repercussions for your life and career after your time in the spotlight expires.)

I made it one year. With two fully-funded years to go, I left the program.

At almost every turn, I was met with the deeply-ingrained impression — even from other well-meaning, brave poets who were trying to change it — that poetry is such a unicorn, moonshot thing to do and to try to succeed and make a living at.

I thought that being surrounded by other poets would be a way to challenge and expand my writing, reinforce my desire to engage intimately and deeply with the art form, and inspire me to push myself to improve like never before. I got some of that, and for that, I’m truly thankful. But it always, always came with an unhealthy dose of the reminder that what we were doing was unusual — and the notion effectively stated as, “oh yeah, good luck trying to find a job later, but you don’t need to worry about that now and we won’t worry about it until after you graduate, but look at all the teaching experience you’re getting that will prepare you for your non-job and also steal away all of your writing time now! Isn’t this great?!”

I began to see we were all pretty much terrified. And some, paralyzed. Understandably so! No one wants to work at Denny’s to fund their career as a writer. And to poets, who don’t even feel like poets when they go shopping (because shopping contradicts and subverts the generous, inquisitive impulse to understand and articulate), working at Denny’s would feel, I’d wager, something akin to prostitution.

Yikes, I didn’t expect to find this while searching for “Denny’s” images….

From outside of academia and even from within it, poets are told it’s not acceptable to do poetry. And I was tired of being made to feel weird. Even though poetry, perhaps of all things I have ever tried, has come the most naturally, and promisingly, to me.

When I left the program, I didn’t know whether to think I was crazy or sane. Regardless, leaving was an act of self-preservation. I thought it would be better to write with disapproval only coming from one direction, compared to both.

Leaving was also a way for me to say, “No. I’m not okay with this. And I’m not okay with this for other aspiring artists. I want to get to work trying to understand and solve this problem. I can help change this.”

For well over a year now, but really, over my lifetime, I’ve been collecting possible reasons for this problem. I’ll save writing those for another day. But I’m also now trying to come up with feasible solutions. I think it has something to do with the publishing industry. I’m still a long ways off, but I’ve made strides. (Trubadour.com now!)

I’m on a mission for poets, writers, and other creatives. A mission to dispel an idea that I believe is toxic to aspiring poets and not at all conducive to flourishing of the art form — that is, that poetry is weird, liking poetry is weird, and devoting your life to poetry is to sign up for a life as a weird, starving artist.

Maybe my idealism will be my undoing, to think that it could ever be different and to believe that I could ever help make it different. But I don’t care. I’m on a mission to make poetry cool again. Because it’s so cool. I dare you to tell me that this poem is not cool.

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.