A Post On Poetry Nobody Will Probably Care About

Well, I thought of this the other day in relation to Jen's topic, but then I came down with a serious case of Spring Break syndrome. So basically I've been lazing around doing nothing the past few days. Anyway, I'm going to say some things in this post that will probably offend some of the liberal readers. But again, I'm probably the most left leaning person on this blog (socialist). I'm just going to lay down some broad generalizations. So feel free to flame.

In the poetry world, as is common knowledge, it is easy to get a book published if you make it about your "identity." That is, if you are from a non-majority culture, especially one that is rare, then if you write your book about wrestling with your identity, it can probably be published. Are your parents Zimbabwean lawyers? Write some poems! Is your father from Iceland and mother from Lilliput? Write poems! Win some awards! (Well, Jane Miller, a pretty big poet and smart person said identity poetry is dead, but I don't think it is quite yet. Maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part).

Anyway, I've always felt this trend is the poetry world's equivalent of ethno-tourism. The vast majority of poetry readers, if I may generalize for a moment, are wealthy white liberals. When they read books about, say, a Saudi woman emigrating to America or poor gay black man in the American south, they can in turn say "See? I support all of these diverse ethnic groups. I'm not a racist, classist, or homophobe. Look at my books! Sure, my friends are all white and I drive a big gas guzzling SUV, but I read about these poor others. That means I'm a good person."

This sort of attitude is something that's always bothered me about liberals (I'm generalizing for the sake of my argument. Obviously, it's only a certain kind of liberal I'm complaining about). When I worked at Publix in Tallahassee, rich white liberals would come into the store a lot, and then speak to the black cashiers or baggers like they could actually identify with them just because they watched some special on Thelonius Monk the previous night on PBS. (Here's a story that doesn't really fit my argument, but is pretty funny anyway: I remember one time in particular when this bagger, Terrence, asked an older white lady what kind of music she liked. Her response was "Well, classic rock, country, some hip hop." Hip hop? Give me a break! You've never listened to one rap song in your life unless it was playing in a movie by Michael Moore. You don't have to say hip hop just because a black man asked you what kind of music you like. He won't think you're racist if you don't say hip hop.)

Well, that last paragraph sort of strayed from my argument. That's another reason I didn't post on Friday. Because I knew I didn't have the energy to make my post coherent. I guess I've already established I'm not the brains of this operation.

Anyway, one more issue with ethno-tourism in poetry books, and other books. When I was at AWP in Atlanta I went to a panel my friend Hayan was on, about Arab-American writers in the 21st century. One of the panelists (whose name I forget because I am a bad person) discussed that it's easy to get a novel or memoir published if it's told from the perspective of an Arab, but only if that perspective shows how bad the culture is, and the main character is rejecting the culture. She named a couple of examples, one of which I think was called Raghead, though I am not a good enough blogger to look past two pages of google search results, that had female protagonists who were routinely abused in their Arab cultures, and then escaped them for the land of the free. Something else for readers to read and then be relieved that we're bombing civilians. I guess that excuses things, their crazy mixed up culture.

Sorry, this was not a very good blog. I have ADD.