Well, not a big response to our poll on the inauguration poem — perhaps because so many websites have been carrying people’s responses. Just one person voted who said the poem was good, rather than middling or great.
Occasional poems aren’t easy to write. Add to that the formal demands of a praise song, and compound the matter further with the expectations of a vast and varied audience on an unprecedented occasion… Clearly Elizabeth Alexander had her work cut out for her.
Setting aside for now how good or bad the poem was, a great many people commented that Professor Alexander’s reading didn’t transmit the poem’s music, didn’t make the best use of its natural rhythms. And the audience did have a right to expect music, for the poem had named itself that way — it was, after all, a praise song. Perhaps the poet read slowly because she wanted people to understand; perhaps she was awed by the occasion. Whatever it was, the truth is, even if not all poets are performers, this poet on this occasion needed to be one, needed to steep herself in the imagined moment, so that when she opened her mouth before the great congregation, the poem would emerge powerfully, as Rev Lowery’s prayer did. (In fact, some people have compared the poem, unfavourably, to Rev Lowery’s benediction.)
Quraysh Ali Lansana, director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing and associate professor of English and creative writing at Chicago State University had this to say: “Elizabeth is a poet who renders her work very much in the way that many poets have been schooled or trained, certainly many academics, which is to read the poem and sort of let the words live on their own, without the emotional emphasis placed in certain areas… It is a school of thought for many poets and academics, and I am an academic, but I don’t ascribe to this approach to reading work.”
Might there be, lurking under his comment about the manner of ‘reading work,’ a similar observation about writing it?
Why did so many people not like the poem? Is it perhaps because their poetic expectations derive from the diet of rhyme (straight or slant), rhythm, and ‘deep emotion,’ that still characterize many popular songs? Such expectations might account for a comment like, “This is poetry? Gosh, if I'd turned in this kind of crap in elementary school, I'd have failed on the spot… Dr Suess (sic) did a better job!” or one like, “The dull and somewhat monotonous reading style improved very little the bland and repetitious verses of a confusing poem…”
Wordsworth, in that famous long-time definition, saw a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling” as being at the root of the poetry-making activity, and rhyme and rhythm are ancient, worthy tools of poetic craft. Indeed, rhyme or no rhyme — there’s no issue about rhythm, for if it’s words, they will have rhythm — an occasional poem needs to rise to the occasion, and if the event is as big as this one was, then there needs must be a mighty rising.
So what did I think of the poem? I think the poet did a good, work-woman-like job, but not a great one, which I suppose amounts to saying that she didn’t quite manage to meet the demands of the moment. Some people say she was trying to fit in with Obama’s low-key, practical, we-have-lots-of-work-to-set-about-doing speech. I don’t agree. I think she saw her job right. It was to sing a praise song, and, as David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times observed, in the stanza in which she recalled the stories of the many whose struggles made the day possible, her poem did make music.
But I think we must at least consider the possibility that some persons have hijacked poetry and run off with it to a distant hill, where they have been cooking and reheating the poetic corpse so that it’s now a weary, wary, prosy poetry. That might explain the poet letting out the string so that the kite of her poem (in the verse Ulin refers to) lifts with, “Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices…” only to fetch it up in some prosy brambles by proceeding to describe the edifices as ones “they would then keep clean and work inside of…” Oh dear!
All of which brings me back to the question in my previous post about whether there are many different poetries…
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Alexander. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Alexander. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
What Makes a Good Poem?
A lot of talk about Elizabeth Alexander’s inauguration poem, “Praisesong for the Day.” Some people liked it, some didn’t. If you pass by over the next few days, do participate in our poll! I’ll save my comments until the results are available. I’ve been thinking about poetry, though, and my ruminations benefited yesterday from a conversation with Dan Varrette, one of the editors at Insomniac Press (thanks, Dan), as well as some eavesdropping online today.
I’ve often found myself remarking, in discussions about poetry, that soldiers in WWI took books of poetry with them into the trenches. Poetry was that important. So, like, maybe that would be a good criterion to apply to a poem? Would you take this poem with you into a war? Would you have wanted to take Elizabeth Alexander’s poem, or a piece of that poem, with you into a war? That’s kind of a tough test but, since some poems at a previous time have passed it, maybe it’s not an unfair measure. How high? That high!
(Worth noting that a lasting body of work emerged from the pens of soldiers in both World Wars…)
There are actually poems that I remember, and am glad to recollect, some from when I was at school, and other poems or bits of poems encountered since. So maybe that could be another criterion. Is this poem, or a part of a poem, something I want to remember? We do remember songs, after all, the truth being that some songs are fine poems: think Bob Marley, the Beatles, Leonard Cohen.
What I’m wondering is whether it’s inevitable that people’s taste in poetry, their expectations of a poem and their ideas about the good-and-bad-of-it, be determined by where they are from, their history, their language(s) and their culture. For some people, poetry is a way of finding out who they are (Césaire’s "Qui et quel nous sommes?"), and thinking through their history. There’s the famous Walcott quote from “A Far Cry from Africa” that puts the matter up front and personal:
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa, and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?
Brother Bob’s “Redemption song” reports that never mind our history of being stolen and forcibly relocated…
Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
…because of the strong, uplifting hand of the Almighty, triumph is ours and so “We forward in this generation.”
Should all poets address concerns like these? Or is it only people whose history includes oppression and the horrors of slavery, deracination and forced relocation across oceans and continents — and if not those precise subjects, versions thereof?
Is England’s Philip Larkin looking, albeit with a much tighter lens, and from a somewhat different angle, at who we are and how our history informs us in his bad-behave poem, “This Be the Verse”?
This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
These and similar questions beg to be asked. Does white people’s poetry have to be different from the poetry of black people? Does the poetry of black and white people have to be different from the poetry of native people? What about gay people? Women? Men? Do they all write separate poetries?
Are some poets preoccupied with ‘new and different’ because for them poems need no longer bear any serious burdens? If, after all, poems struggle with issues of justice, of unequal relations within and between nations, of racism, classism, gender relations, it would seem that they hardly need to set out to be different. Must they not get there under the terrible strain? And if they don’t, what does it matter? Isn’t the issue whether the words make your hair stand on end, or fail to?
It’s interesting to compare the excerpts from these three poets. Derek Walcott sounds almost histrionic, set against Bob Marley’s laconic recounting of rapine and Larkin’s mischievous — and deadly — counsel to us to abandon the reproductive enterprise. But the anguish that wrenches Walcott’s questions from his gut emanates from a history of capture, abduction, and plantation slavery that more than supports it. The shrieks are warranted. If Bob’s tempo is different, he’s singing the same tune. And Larkin’s little nursery rhyme delivers the most terrifying verdict of all: misery is our inheritance, and so we should just stop. Period.
Interestingly enough, all three use rhyme (Bob’s rhyme of ‘Almighty’ and ‘triumphantly’ is missing here), and three better practitioners of the Muses’ art it would be hard to pick. More on poetry soon.
I’ve often found myself remarking, in discussions about poetry, that soldiers in WWI took books of poetry with them into the trenches. Poetry was that important. So, like, maybe that would be a good criterion to apply to a poem? Would you take this poem with you into a war? Would you have wanted to take Elizabeth Alexander’s poem, or a piece of that poem, with you into a war? That’s kind of a tough test but, since some poems at a previous time have passed it, maybe it’s not an unfair measure. How high? That high!
(Worth noting that a lasting body of work emerged from the pens of soldiers in both World Wars…)
There are actually poems that I remember, and am glad to recollect, some from when I was at school, and other poems or bits of poems encountered since. So maybe that could be another criterion. Is this poem, or a part of a poem, something I want to remember? We do remember songs, after all, the truth being that some songs are fine poems: think Bob Marley, the Beatles, Leonard Cohen.
What I’m wondering is whether it’s inevitable that people’s taste in poetry, their expectations of a poem and their ideas about the good-and-bad-of-it, be determined by where they are from, their history, their language(s) and their culture. For some people, poetry is a way of finding out who they are (Césaire’s "Qui et quel nous sommes?"), and thinking through their history. There’s the famous Walcott quote from “A Far Cry from Africa” that puts the matter up front and personal:
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa, and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?
Brother Bob’s “Redemption song” reports that never mind our history of being stolen and forcibly relocated…
Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
…because of the strong, uplifting hand of the Almighty, triumph is ours and so “We forward in this generation.”
Should all poets address concerns like these? Or is it only people whose history includes oppression and the horrors of slavery, deracination and forced relocation across oceans and continents — and if not those precise subjects, versions thereof?
Is England’s Philip Larkin looking, albeit with a much tighter lens, and from a somewhat different angle, at who we are and how our history informs us in his bad-behave poem, “This Be the Verse”?
This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
These and similar questions beg to be asked. Does white people’s poetry have to be different from the poetry of black people? Does the poetry of black and white people have to be different from the poetry of native people? What about gay people? Women? Men? Do they all write separate poetries?
Are some poets preoccupied with ‘new and different’ because for them poems need no longer bear any serious burdens? If, after all, poems struggle with issues of justice, of unequal relations within and between nations, of racism, classism, gender relations, it would seem that they hardly need to set out to be different. Must they not get there under the terrible strain? And if they don’t, what does it matter? Isn’t the issue whether the words make your hair stand on end, or fail to?
It’s interesting to compare the excerpts from these three poets. Derek Walcott sounds almost histrionic, set against Bob Marley’s laconic recounting of rapine and Larkin’s mischievous — and deadly — counsel to us to abandon the reproductive enterprise. But the anguish that wrenches Walcott’s questions from his gut emanates from a history of capture, abduction, and plantation slavery that more than supports it. The shrieks are warranted. If Bob’s tempo is different, he’s singing the same tune. And Larkin’s little nursery rhyme delivers the most terrifying verdict of all: misery is our inheritance, and so we should just stop. Period.
Interestingly enough, all three use rhyme (Bob’s rhyme of ‘Almighty’ and ‘triumphantly’ is missing here), and three better practitioners of the Muses’ art it would be hard to pick. More on poetry soon.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Bon chance, President Obama! Here's hoping!
But you see my dying trial! In an age of three card sharkism, celluloid, animation, videotape, holograms, all kinds of Anansi webs and nets, smoke and mirrors, in other words lie and 'tory raised to de infinite power, the man wants transparency! Barack, dost though know where thou sittest down to sup? Hast thou thy long spoon?
I can’t hold a watching brief where the 44th president is concerned. I have to believe that the fact that 50 million people voted for this man means that a creature, Decent America, evolving by some unearthly grace, has stirred and is struggling to its feet. I must trust that it will get up, must will it up, and even if it’s wobbly at first, hope that it will find firm feet, then walk, and perhaps even in due course, trot along. I’m refusing to be detached, distant, world weary. It's not my style, and it's such a tired pose.
What Americans do, how they and their government behave, materially affects us all. This Earth, which North Americans (Canadians especially) pollute with their abuse of energy resources, is my planet, our planet. This World, which Americans have felt is theirs to mess with as they wish, is my world, our world. And Jah (who has a sense of humour, BTW — how else to explain a man named Hussein being president of the USA at this hour?) occasionally puts his foot down. S/he has just done exactly that.
If you mess where you please, when you want, because you feel like it, eventually you will foul your own backyard. If you are greedy and nyam up everything in sight, then your bowels will be full, and the excrement you deposit will be (1) trillions of mounds high, (2) stink to heaven and (3) require a large number of backs and buckets to move it. I will resist obvious remarks about who have been history’s hewers of wood, drawers of water and movers of night soil. What's the point at this point? As Obama says, Americans had all better “pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start remaking America”. Much the same applies to the rest of the world!
The Toronto Star published a feature http://www.thestar.com/news/uselection/article/572960 about Barack Obama when he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990. Read it and you’ll see that he isn’t a product of the last three years, a media artifact, a 'spun' fiction. Who he is now is pretty much who he was then. I find that encouraging. Cool is not something he learned last year. Nor is entertaining other people's opinions, especially those that diverge from his. There is, after all, very little point in ideology that works our undoing. We don't need the help of ideology – we're managing our undoing quite well otherwise!
I cannot think what madness has possessed this man to want to do this thing, for the job of President of the USA is not one anybody in their right mind should want at this moment. Let it be said, though, that God is good, and makes provision. History, blood, sunsum, intellect, temperament and character (for they are different) and broughtupcy have uniquely equipped Obama. He says ‘Thank you’ constantly; he and Michelle applaud other people all the time.
And he uses "we" a lot, so when he says "I," you listen up.
So here's to all of us. Here’s to good will. Here’s hoping! Perhaps we should all pause at midday, or midnight, or just every now and then, and wish Barack Obama and his administration well, wish one another well, wish all earthlings well, and bless the planet itself. It wouldn’t hurt and it might just make a difference. Selah!
I can’t hold a watching brief where the 44th president is concerned. I have to believe that the fact that 50 million people voted for this man means that a creature, Decent America, evolving by some unearthly grace, has stirred and is struggling to its feet. I must trust that it will get up, must will it up, and even if it’s wobbly at first, hope that it will find firm feet, then walk, and perhaps even in due course, trot along. I’m refusing to be detached, distant, world weary. It's not my style, and it's such a tired pose.
What Americans do, how they and their government behave, materially affects us all. This Earth, which North Americans (Canadians especially) pollute with their abuse of energy resources, is my planet, our planet. This World, which Americans have felt is theirs to mess with as they wish, is my world, our world. And Jah (who has a sense of humour, BTW — how else to explain a man named Hussein being president of the USA at this hour?) occasionally puts his foot down. S/he has just done exactly that.
If you mess where you please, when you want, because you feel like it, eventually you will foul your own backyard. If you are greedy and nyam up everything in sight, then your bowels will be full, and the excrement you deposit will be (1) trillions of mounds high, (2) stink to heaven and (3) require a large number of backs and buckets to move it. I will resist obvious remarks about who have been history’s hewers of wood, drawers of water and movers of night soil. What's the point at this point? As Obama says, Americans had all better “pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start remaking America”. Much the same applies to the rest of the world!
The Toronto Star published a feature http://www.thestar.com/news/uselection/article/572960 about Barack Obama when he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990. Read it and you’ll see that he isn’t a product of the last three years, a media artifact, a 'spun' fiction. Who he is now is pretty much who he was then. I find that encouraging. Cool is not something he learned last year. Nor is entertaining other people's opinions, especially those that diverge from his. There is, after all, very little point in ideology that works our undoing. We don't need the help of ideology – we're managing our undoing quite well otherwise!
I cannot think what madness has possessed this man to want to do this thing, for the job of President of the USA is not one anybody in their right mind should want at this moment. Let it be said, though, that God is good, and makes provision. History, blood, sunsum, intellect, temperament and character (for they are different) and broughtupcy have uniquely equipped Obama. He says ‘Thank you’ constantly; he and Michelle applaud other people all the time.
And he uses "we" a lot, so when he says "I," you listen up.
So here's to all of us. Here’s to good will. Here’s hoping! Perhaps we should all pause at midday, or midnight, or just every now and then, and wish Barack Obama and his administration well, wish one another well, wish all earthlings well, and bless the planet itself. It wouldn’t hurt and it might just make a difference. Selah!
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