A Rather Uneventful Session

I went back to Filter today, had some coffee there and tried to write a bit more. Nothing productive unfortunately. I tried reading a bit of Weldon Kees. I know some folks who like him a lot, but I had tremendous difficulty getting into his work. I keep meaning to try more, but after a few poems I remember why I threw the book in a corner to begin with.

There are some poets who, after reading over their work, make me feel stupid. I look up from the book and think: "What the fuck? I didn’t understand anything on that page." If the poem is not clear to me, or even vaguely clear to me… I feel deficient in some way. The fact that I "didn’t get it" makes me feel less intelligent, less literary, less well-read.

At least, I used to feel this way.

Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion where, if I’m arching my eyebrows or my eyes have glazed over… I blame the poet. This is not to say that I’m a lazy reader. No no no no no. I’m willing to do my share. But a poem to me is still, at its heart, communication. I may prefer one poet over another, based on particulars like style or voice. But when those creative differences get in the way of sheer comprehension… that’s when I balk, step back and point my finger at the writer.

Man, one of these days I need to organize my thoughts on writing in a formal essay, instead of just spouting off everytime something annoys me.

At any rate, I guess what I’m wanting here is for people to not be so afraid or put-off by poetry. If someone reads a poem they don’t like or don’t understand… I want them to be able to say so. It should be ok to say "I don’t get it" or "I don’t like it," or better yet "What a shitty poem."

True, there are poems that require knowledge of poetry’s history, of its tradition. But I prefer otherwise. I just don’t like that prerequisite of "outside knowledge" to enjoy a poem. If you want people to come inside your house and look around, why put a lock on the door? In fact, why build a door at all? Just build an entryway, and don’t willfully create anything to impede access.

If I’m writing a poem about memory, and I invoke the river Lethe, that mythological reference should serve as an enhancement. It should NOT be the crux that defines whether or not you understand the poem. If you know what the reference is to, good for you… that knowledge adds to your understanding of the poem; if you don’t know what the reference is to, no problem… it shouldn’t be central to the poem.

All in all, I think it comes down to saturation and distribution. If I write flowery, bullshit poems with titles like Moocow: A Villanelle After Joyce then who the fuck am I writing this for? I really hope that I don’t end up writing poems for a select audience, for some small pocket of elitist literary bastards. I know poetry has a stigma of elitism tied to it, and I want that to change. I want to be the cause of that change. If I write a poem, I want to make it so that people who don’t read poetry will like it.

If you’re not trying to communicate with everyone through your art, then it’s not art. It’s masturbation. And at best it’s graffiti; it’s carving your initials into a tree. If you’re not trying to communicate with everyone through your art, how are you going to change the world?