Should we make a sport out of poetry? I smell morality issue in that question. Who was it-- Merle Somebody? -- forgive my ignorance-- singing an objection to making a "party out of lovin'?" Well, I do my best not to be any kind of snob, and so have no objection to any partying in the human race, provided all participants are self-possessed volunteers. The greatest sin an idealist can commit is to render the world down into his own image.
Let us grant for argument's sake that competitional poetry is a steaming crock. Well, what of it? There is no story till a shadow crosses the sunny valley. Even in an ivory tower the writer is a barn shoveler first and finally. No manure, no job. No job, no shoveler. Even Hercules was not above stable duty. I am talking high literature here, by the way.
And what of appealing to posterity? There is no way to know who among us will be among the select anointed a century hence. Even if all the computers do not crash, nor all the hard copies crumble from paper acid, to dream of literary immortality will still be to dream of having your head frozen in liquid nitrogen, on the chance the yet-unborn will have nothing better to do than revive you. I say lick your chops for supper instead, or for winning a slam.
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Know this: it's all temporary.
ReplyDeleteEven the nicest people fade to dust.
Tell stories for the sheer joy of telling them
not because you expect them to last.
Amen. You can't really determine what will make future summer reading lists, so you might as well write what you enjoy.
On the other hand, "And you that will cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose." -Walt Whitman, "Crossing Broklyn Ferry"
ReplyDeleteAs someone who does not expect to be witnessing the future on a heavenly Flat Screen TV (much less with Avatar-style 3-D), I still anticipate, not for immortality, but because those I love now will inherit the future. I take long view; that arc of history takes more than a lifetime to bend to justice. I just want to influence its trajectory, attach a few songs to sing the planet onward and upward when I'm gone.
Although I am a voracious reader and probably devour 100 books a year, I never caught the poetry bug in large part because of having extraordinarily bad English teachers in junior and high school.
ReplyDeletePoetry competitions and slams seem to me to be a way to infect people like me and my one exposure (a slam at the New Eurekan in NYC) was a gas.
Furthermore, one of the memes that keeps popping up on this most excellent blog is how to attract more people to your works and those of your Delaware peers. What better way than competitions and slams?
*raises hand...........can I say something on here?*
ReplyDeleteGo ahead, Rich
ReplyDeleteYou've got me on that one, Phil, to see writing as an act of love toward those who supercede you, a casting of bread on upstream waters, trusting hunger to dwell in those downstream someday. I guess keeping a faith can generate hope, sustaining charity
ReplyDeleteFranetta McMillian, thanx for reminding me of your great poem on the subject at hand. I still can't figure out how you make plain statements profound.
ReplyDeleteShaun Mullen: while I am not a slam person myself, I see its social power-- may you keep the force with you.
ReplyDelete