Much has been written about whether poetry is flourishing or decaying in our consumerist technology-addicted culture. Trends in poetry are generally agreed to be towards the opaque, the intellectual, the poetry-as-game. Humour and references to other texts are frequent. While formalism has made a small come-back, free verse and the excuse it provides to the lazy not to examine line structure and length still predominate. This is a contrived excuse, of course. Good poetry is good poetry and there is plenty of good poetry in free verse being written. And the increase of poetry with Pasifika roots and other cultures than English can only be a good thing.
What puzzles me though is an attitude I have come across time and again in online forums, interviews, readings, generally the panoply of literary culture. Where writers treat poetry - their main creative endeavour - as a source of comfort, a tamed pet that usually behaves itself, and if it wees on the carpet is given a telling-off. A safe environment where the good poetry of today is read and applauded, but not attacked, and where purpose and meaning of the poetic effort is never discussed.
Maybe this attitude is assumed for the purposes of communal events, to boost the writer's self-esteem, or to play along with the etiquette of being confident about the worth of your own work or the work being displayed.
But the problem of this attitude is that it avoids the possibility of deep emotional connections, which are never safe, and always change the people involved. Connections to the works you read, and to works you are writing. How can your poems possibly attain greatness if you are fundamentally untouched? Would you recognise it and be affected by it if you see it? Greatness, which is not about how well the poem is written, but the purpose of the poem itself.
The classic essay by Donald Hall "Poetry and Ambition", talks about the difference between good and great poetry and the worthy aim (if difficult and unsure) of writing great poetry. He is right to say the poem, not the poet, will be what remains, one of "the stars in the sky". And it is entirely reasonably and even probable to think that all our efforts are for nothing, and that we haven't succeeded.
But we still need to question, rigorously and continually, the purpose of our poetic efforts, and of each poem we write. What does it contribute? This is a hard question to answer, striking as it does at the root of our self-esteem as writers. And difficult as these things are to discuss publicly, we need to discuss them for writers like myself, still an apprentice, to understand that greatness, rather than publication or fellowship, is the ultimate aim. That technical skill is only an intermediate step.
As a writer, this is the first danger of poetry. It throws into question the focus I have put on my life and ensures I can never stop questioning it.
The second danger of poetry is as a reader. If I don't feel that what I am reading is somehow dangerous to me, challenging me in some way fundamental to how I live, it can only be a comfort in the way pulp fiction is a comfort, or junk food. It can't be art.
Of course in this relationship the reader must play their part, or even the greatest poems will go unnoticed. To read poetry attentively and openly means taking your time, rereading, registering the twitches of your sensitive nose-hairs to the fluctuations of allusion, metaphor, rhythm, structure. Thinking about what you have read, and thinking whole-heartedly, that is with your mind and your heart open.
This is demanding stuff, and no wonder people select the things they put their energy into. But it is still essential for the great works to live. Will we look back at the poetry of the 21st century and be able to pick out the great poems from the wealth of published material? Critics and poets and academics perform this function by praising, reading, referencing, and teaching, and by these means some work survives in our culture, and some doesn't.
So be a reader that demands greatness as well as skill. Be a writer that demands these things from yourself. Strive for what you can never achieve, and you may achieve something worth reading.
