It's tough to tell people who ask me what I'm doing that I go to graduate school for poetry writing. Mainly because people don't realize that you can go to school for poetry writing, I guess. Or because people don't believe that anybody in their right mind would even want to go to school for poetry writing (they're probably right). Usually the way the conversation goes is something like this:
Person: So Glenn, what do you do now?
Me: I go to the University of Houston for graduate school.
Person: Really? What do you study?
Me: Poetry writing.
Person: Oh. Poetry writing. *pukes everywhere*
This scenario is the general reaction of most people. Most people do not read contemporary poetry, and therefore think poetry writing is kind of lame. Middle school girls do that shit all the time and they don't have to go tens of thousands of dollars in debt to do it. They just have to get their pigtails pulled or something, I don't know. But I can't blame people for this attitude because nobody reads contemporary poetry. Even my good friends at this blog I bet don't read contemporary poetry. In fact, I would be astonished if one reader (and most of our readers seem extremely well educated) could name off the top of his or her head five living literary poets (ie not Jewel or Billy Corgan or Fantasia). Unless Melanie pops back in again, because she knows her stuff.
None of this is the fault of readers (or non-readers) of poetry, though. If your high school was like mine, then you probably only read three or four poems from the 20th century. Something like "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell, "Grasshopper" by e. e. cummings, "Richard Cory" by Edward Arlington Robinson, and some awful shit about not drinking on prom night.
Anyway, those first three linked poems were the only 20th century poems I was ever exposed to in high school. And while I can understand the merits of them (now, not then), they basically all suck. So I hated poetry for many years, until as a senior in undergrad at FSU I couldn't get into a fiction workshop class and had to take poetry workshop class. Anyway, I got exposed to poetry that was actually written (mostly) during my lifetime, and I was really blown away. Though I don't really like most of these people now, poets like Ai, Billy Collins, David Kirby, and Sylvia Plath were really what drew me into poetry. I guess they all worked as introductions. (I don't really like Ai or Billy Collins anymore, but I can't ignore what their poetry did for me).
I sort of feel like anybody who claims to hate contemporary poetry just hasn't read the right contemporary poetry. Sort of like people who claim to hate country music or rap I guess. Maybe it's ridiculous, but I feel like I was in the same boat as a lot of haters. And maybe people just think poetry is dumb because of all the lame prom poems we had to read in high school. I would recommend to people just to check out Poetry Daily once a day. There's a different poem up there every day, it's free, and sometimes there's even a good poem. Then maybe one day you guys will actually like poetry and stop puking on my shoes whenever I say I go to grad school for poetry. Seriously, they're nice shoes.
Or maybe you'd even see a poet you really like and buy his or her book? Ha, who am I kidding?
PS - Coda:
I've made my main point, but here's a side note. If the person who is asking what I do is from Houston, here's how the conversation goes:
Person: So pardner, what do you do?
Me: I go to graduate school.
Person: Oh, at Rice University?
Me: No, the University of Houston.
Person: Oh. UH. *pukes everywhere then stabs out own face*
Oh well. People think UH is lame here, because it is a public school. Although it is the most racially and ethnically diverse campus in America, which is pretty great. But I guess rich snobs who send their kids to Rice (private school) probably hate all those ethnic types. Sometimes I try to explain that the writing program at UH is nationally recognized as the second best in the nation (after Suckowa, I mean, Iowa), but then I sound like a big pretentious douche.
PPS - That coda was my way of saying UH is nationally recognized as the second best in the nation without sounding like a big pretentious douche.
PPPS - If it helps, the last time they rated writing programs was 1997. So that doesn't really matter anymore I guess.
PPPPS - Also, I can think of nothing more fun than teaching poetry to college students, which is why I'm getting the degree, also.
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17 comments:
It's easy to hate poetry, even if (especially if?) you write it. I've gone through periods where I'm just fed up and I start reading scientific essays or cereal boxes or anything that will block out the baggage of poetry. But I always come back, and, like you, I think it's fun to teach. I like the challenge of finding a poem that isn't about the prom. I like the challenge of trying to find a poem for everybody in the room.
don't be hating on me if i'm wrong, but i always thought that poetry is more for the writer than the reader. i love to write poems - the writing is theraputic. i've even gone so far as to have a couple published on those freebie poetry websites... but i don't expect people to understand them.
as part of a creative writing class i took in college, i had to submit several "pieces" of creative writing. one of them, i will never forget, was a poem that had incredibly deep meaning for me that i tried to write about using a metaphor. not a single person in that class got it, although they got other things out of it that i didn't intend, but there is no way i would change a word of that poem. it says what i want it to say -to me. that incident made me wonder if all the poets (and writers in general) that i had to comment on in school had any idea what random crap people would come up with based on their work. (and don'tcha just hate those times the teacher would know what the poem "was really about" and you'd (or at least, i'd) get the question wrong on the test because of a different interpretation... sigh).
To me, that is one of the most beautiful things about a poem that a short story or a novel or a personal essay could never be. A good poem is a shape shifter, it is the lense and the eye and the way of seeing. It is a mirror, and most of all, it, like "real" life, reacts differently to each person and the sum of all of their experiences.
Perhaps there is a level where poems are meant to be simply a kind of therapy for the poet, a sort of purification through fire in which the act of writing becomes the kindling, the spark, and the devouring flames. But in the case of most "good poetry" and for most people who would call themselves "poets", a poem is like a doorway with no hinges that opens onto a room without walls. It is a drug free psychadelic experience that lasts only a moment but stays with you into the next phase of your life, it is the man who pushes you in front of the train and the old woman who grabs you by the lapels as you are falling backwards.
And most of all, it is not meant, necessarily, to be "understood." Poetry works on the psyche in the same way a beautiful landscape does, or the first snow of winter, or a congregation of lightning bugs. Poetry is beyond a simple riddle, a kind of puzzle to be solved (although it is often that as well.) If anything, poetry is more akin to the koan, the zen riddle that begs solving and can only be understood through sudden epiphany. So next time you read a poem, don't try to figure it out by "logical" means. Simply imbibe it. And if you're lucky, it will devour you.
Glenn- I feel your pain. My school is a shit hole of a school and is sub par in most ways (sounds like UH has several redeeming qualities... my school does not). However, their I/O program is quite good. I never know how to mention that to people without sounding like a pretentious ass.
Also, I like modern poets...like Maya Angelou. However, I think that you've mentioned before that she doesn't count. Perhaps you could recommend a couple of specific poems for the uninitiated like me.
Glenn - I *must* have been exposed to *some* poetry in high school (after all, something inspired me and Melissa to write Fred the Cat to show that poetry was bullshit), but I remember NO poetry whatsoever. Must mean we did that in unmemorable 12th grade AP English.
Linda (er, "Krayzykatlady" for those who don't know...) I definitely agree with you. I've never been into poetry (although I have a soft spot for Yeats because the dude lived in a Norman tower - which I've been to, and which was really fucking cool), but there was a period of two years where I wrote a lot of stuff, some of which was poetry. I was going through a lot with family, friends, the guy I was dating, moving away from home for the first time, etc and I felt I needed an outlet. Not that anyone (other than Melissa) read any of that stuff. I even threw it all away when I felt better. It was certainly theraputic though.
Everyone - when Melissa and I were in high school, we wrote a "poem" called Fred the Cat. It was intentionally not a poem at all. The way we wrote it was she made up a nonsense sentence, then I made up a nonsense sentence, and so on. It actually had three stanzas (if that's the correct term), but I only remember the first one. For an assignment in 12th grade AP English, we analyzed this poem for the class, and we claimed it was written by an anonymous author. (That lame-ass teacher bought it by the way!) Also, the striped shirt and green bag were things in my room at the time. So, without further ado, Fred the Cat, the fake poem:
The bird was flying
And the green bag was lying on the bed.
The girl was dead,
And the warm blood streamed from her cold, lifeless body.
The striped shirt was hanging,
And the screaming resounded through the walls.
A note was struck, slightly off key,
And the tone pierced through to the soul of the bird.
Melanie, I play video games regularly to block out poetry when I need to. In fact, my writing process is to write a draft of a poem, and then play a non-thinking video game so I can mull over what I've written. Plus I hit up the comic shop every week, too, and read at least 5 comic books to balance the one poetry book a week I try to read. Plus Netflix. I've been making my way through Star Trek: The Next Generation. That's about as far from poetry as you get.
Linda (I don't know if I'm allowed to call you that since you blog here under krazykatlady, but I guess I call Martin Martin), I write poetry first and foremost for myself. If it wasn't something I loved, I definitely wouldn't be here. But if I was writing it just for me, then I also wouldn't be here, because I could do that anywhere. But to be able to communicate or evoke some universal feeling or truth is an idea that is really terrific to me. It sounds kind of lame to put it in words. But when I write a poem, although the actual specifics of the "event" (if there is an event) may be obscure, but I hope that the emotional tone of the poem is successful. If somebody reads a non-narrative poem of mine and feels uneasy or terrified, and that's what I wanted, then the poem is a success.
I think what a lot of people do is when they approach poems that are not necessarily grounded in events or the world, they try to decode them, because that's what we were taught in high school. A better idea, I think (and I'm usually pretty dumb when it comes to poems), is to read the poem once, and if you don't get specifically what it is about, read it again and try to let the images or language impact you in a tonal or emotional way. If you feel sad or happy or love or something but still don't get what the poem is about, then probably it was still a success.
Martin, I'm sorry I forgot to mention that you also know what you're talking about when it comes to poetry, too, but you do. Although you and I differ on our opinions of James Tate.
Melissa (I assume, unless there are more I/O grads reading this blog), don't read James Tate. Maya Angelou is fine as a gateway poet, if she interests you, but there are a lot more complex poets out there. It's tough to recommend to somebody who to read without knowing what you want from poetry, but Tony Hoagland is a good accessible poet (and he teaches at UH, so I guess I'm plugging the school), or maybe Billy Collins as a mentioned. Sylvia Plath is great but dead, as is Anne Sexton. Check out David Kirby's The Ha-Ha. I love Jane Hirshfield, but nobody else I recommend her to loves her. Phillip Levine is terrific. James Wright. Other people might like Cate Marvin (not me, but she's a UH grad, too).
Hey if you want something dense but a great and terrifying read, take a look at Jorie Graham's Overlord. Or maybe The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck.
You know, those last two probably are not where you want to start, but they're great. I also love William Blake, but he's been dead for a while. Or Hart Crane. Now I'm just listing poets I like. I'll stop.
Jane, I'm sorry you didn't like poetry in high school. I can tell the kind of poetry you were making fun of. Unfortunately, I think there's a lot of good poetry in that fragmented style that you lambasted. I wish you remembered what specific poets spurred you to write that. I don't know who you had for 12th grade AP, but I bet she sucked. Seriously everybody, for my sake (and poetry's sake), just bookmark poetry daily and check it out regularly. I swear something you'll like will pop up every now and then.
Can any other poetry person help me out here? Melanie? Martin? Lurkers?
Jane, as I recall we did not say that Fred the Cat was annonymous we said that it was written by a poet named "Nell Kellogg," which was a strange combination of different connotations of our names. Also, Fred was a great improvement from my other poetry attempts, but that's not saying much. ("Flowers are like people, in many different ways, though they once are beautiful, they grow old and wilt away...") Looking back, the majority of the poems I wrote sounded like a depressed middle schooler wrote them...which I guess was appropriate since I went through my poetry writing phase when I was depressed and in middle school.
Glenn, I will check out some of your recommendations. Thanks! Also, I think that it would be really cool to teach creative writing. I've never had a creative writing class, but in one of my women's studies courses there was a lot of creative writing and the process was amazing! That was a pivotal course for me and changed my life in some ways. I imagine that it would be really fulfilling as a professor to facilitate that type of growth in students.
Melissa
*Ahem!*
I also read modern poetry, believe it or not, although I read modern fiction a lot more often. And I don't pretend to write 'poetry,' but I'll sometimes scribble a few lines when something strikes me.
Martin's explanation of poetry (above) is one of the best I've seen.
You know, whenever I said most people on here probably don't know anything about contemporary poetry, I honestly didn't even think about anybody on this blog not from Lake City. And I'm the one always trying to steer it away from being a Lake City blog.
I like your poems, Jen. Last night I was actually thinking about your Laci Peterson poem and that you should send it out. (I'm not being apologetic for not mentioning you either. I really was thinking about it.)
Billy Collins is awesome. My mom and I first heard him on A Prairie Home Companion (I know, I know) and he has such a wonderfully droll voice. For me his poems are accessible and funny without being shallow. My favorites of his are The Lanyard and The Revenant.
I saw Billy Collins when he was at FSU in 2002. He came as part of some series of special events and gave a reading at a big hall in the University Center (that is, the stadium). I was very impressed. Also, we read a lot of Adrienne Rich in high school. So that's two "contemporary poets" I can name. If Ms. Rich counts. I did a lit degree, it was just in a foreign language and more focused on poets who died in the first world war...
So I am one of those losers from LC.
I just wrote for about an hour listing a lot of my favorite poets and talking about how Glenn is wrong about James Tate and Sylvia Plath, but then the internet ate my brain filings. I swear the blood rushes from my body every time that happens and what enters into me afterwards is a sense of dread that everything in my life can be so easily erased. Which in fact it can. So maybe this is just a preparation for that final lost comment of the soul.
I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO pissed off. And now you'll have to wait until I am ready to spend a lot of time to get my list of favorite poets. Until then, Check out some Pablo Neruda and Octavio Paz.
And Matsuo Basho, Issa, and Buson. (If you enjoy the dewdrop as well as the dounpour.)
er...downpour
Jane, I think we published "Fred the Cat" in Prints, did we not?
Um, what was Prints?
The CHS literary magazine. The poem is familiar to me, and I wasn't in your English class, so I assume I read it there.
Glenn:
(points at self)
At least you don't have to explain that you are going to grad school for folklore.
Just sayin'.
Ginny
P.S.--I need to learn not to arrive at airports so damn early.
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