[CC licensed image by topshampatti]
The January 2010 issue of Poetry has an interesting “notebook” by Carmine Starnino on “Lazy Bastardism”. Starnino makes a case for difficult poetry… or at least not giving in to notions of making poetry more intelligible for the “ordinary reader” when that market really doesn’t exist and the battle lines are being drawn out in a conflict that is occurring completely inside the heads of poets (the essay is, of course, far more cogent and eloquent than my rushed summary).
My fundamental disappointment with Starnino’s essay is his decision not to cite any specific poets or poems that exemplify this lazy bastardism. He apparently sees such work often enough to feel a need to very publicly note his objection… but where is it? I have some sympathy for Starnino’s argument, as far as I can understand it, but the whole thing is murky and abstract enough that I couldn’t hold up any specific poem as an example.
I must also admit that my first thought upon reading Starnino’s title was that this would be a (justifiable) indictment of the lazy bastardism of writing experimental poetry that is unintelligible and lacking in appreciable craft. In fact, just a few pages later, in the course of a completely unrelated review of Stephen Edgar’s History of the Day, Joshua Mehigan puts his finger right on the pulse of my objection to much “post-avant” poetry:
“The difference between these poems and much difficult contemporary work is that these yield meanings shareable by reader and writer.”
I need that “shareable” meaning. I’m sure many of the admired post-avant writers are quite brilliant… to the ideal reader that exists only in their own heads. The rest of us, including the post-avant’s many vocal admirers, are forced into the position of erecting a structure using the random pieces of building material provided to us (or patching holes in the ramshackle shack we’re offered), a kind of appreciation that is extremely malleable and far too susceptible to cults of personality and aesthetic electioneering.
I love that phrase “aesthetic electioneering”! And I share your opinion on shareability. I also would like to note that aesthetic electioneers rarely deal in specifics, and when they do—at least in my view (see here, here, and here, for example)—the results are often incomprehensible.
Too often reading Poetry gives me a headache, though reading poetry almost never does.
I go back and forth on how important it is. Sometimes I think it matters not at all… sometimes I wonder why I should cede such important ground to the incomprehensiblists.
In this case, I really did find Starnino’s notebook entry interesting– and I thought Mehigan’s criticism was a fine example of the sort takes a relatively difficult poetry and says something vital about it. I like criticism that does this.
Unlike the Gass essay I quoted from earlier, though, Starnino fails when it comes to bringing in specifics when he needs to. Gass does so (in the full essay, not the part I copied here).
Pingback: the véhicule press blog | Cosmopoetica
OK. Well How about this?.. If a teacher is talking in words that you cannot understand then how can the student learn? And If the teacher does not fully understand what they’re teaching enough to be able to express the ideas in forms that are appropriate to the students then they have no clue what they’re talking about anyway. They’re just regurgitating what they’ve learned somewhere else.
Now the Teacher here refers to the artists /Poet/Writer.
I AM AN INCREDIBLE TEACHER with intelligence that many wouldn’t even understand. But in order to get my own ideas across, It’s necessary to describe what’s in my mind in a way that can easily be understood. The trick is to keep the beauty of the thoughts and emotions no matter how you present it.
So think what you will. When I write, When I teach, When I express myself, I do it in many ways but I ALWAYS strive to get the point across with the full understanding passed on and the emotional beauty intact. You cannot tell a child about life without describing it in words they’ll understand.
So there’s a thought for all of you. Think HARD.
Chuck K