What is wrong with Americaln attitudes to Modern Poetry. Nobody buys Modern Poetry? Why?? What is wrong?

Question

That there is poetry is the only
evidence that man truly exists

The Latin American poet quoted above was wise beyond his years. He had the luxury of participating in a culture that still prized the power of the written word as incantation. A machine can be programmed to make everything a man can make - airplanes, pictures, prose, music - but only one craft still requires exclusively the active participation of a human: poetry. Only a human can create and judge great poetry. Yet no poet currently living can make a living from his labor. This is because modern poetry has been written as prose and the public can not name a poet now living. The public does not buy poetry books. They do not expect to be pleased when they see a book of modern poetry in the shops. And they are right.

The poetry of the Greatest Living Poets Project sets out with a new direction. We never publish a poem unless it contains at least one line that will live forever in the language. greatestlivingpoets.com

Answer 1

American Poetry took to its sickbed with the "Beats" in the 1950s, and died with the Hippies of the 1960s. Why? Two words:

"SELF ABSORPTION!"

A long time ago, the journalist H. L. Mencken said that poets are people who write about emotions the rest of us poor dumb bastards only feel; and he was correct. At its best, poetry is an examination of the emotions that enables the reader to connect with the writer in such a way as to say, "My god, it's as though that writer is reading my mind."

In other words, the job of the poet is to explain the reality of the reader TO the reader. Unfortunately, this trend is completely lacking in modern poetry which contents itself with neurotic screams for attention. This is the true meaning behind the quote you offered in your question. When one reads the poetry of a true expert, one feels connected in a very powerful way. "Wow," you say, "someone else knows exactly how I feel." That's the ultimate validation of one's existence. Forget Descartes, (Cogito ergo sum -- "I think therefore I am); the credo of the poet is "Sensio ergo sum" -- (I feel therefore I am). And in order to feel that, the poet's job is to explain YOU to YOU. That's the validation.

Consider, if I go around screaming, "I WANT, I NEED, I FEEL," all I am doing is giving you an insight into my emotions; but what I have not done is to explain YOUR emotions to YOU. Do you understand? Any two-year-old can scream about his emotions (and every two-year-old does), but that doesn't make him another T.S. Eliot, does it?

The great difficulty with modern poetry is its lack of genuine precision. To touch another person, you must intuitively comprehend the universal questions, and convey that awareness in deathless language. This requires discipline and artfulness that is lacking in the self-absorbed "ego-screamers" who call themselves poets, but who are, in reality, just a bunch of spoiled, artless two-year olds crying out for a cosmic-cookie.

Answer 2

Um, well if you mean "modern" as in written in the past 20 years or so, I've found most of what I've read to just be flat or repetitious. There are only so many original ideas out there, and a lot of poets just fall back on the old standbys, which I believe are nature, love, death, and society. Most poetry can be categorized as having one of these four as the subject, even the "great" poetry of earlier days. Mostly, I don't like modern poetry because many modern poets write for very narrow audiences. You have to have "been there" to "get it" or you have to have gotten your PhD in snobbery to "get it," and for me, poetry is about finding an individual voice that can be heard universally. I keep that in mind as I am reading and as I am writing. And I've never found anything better than Cummings.

Answer 3

That's a pretty narrow def. of man's existence. I'd rather it was "That there is ART is the only evidence man truly exists."

To me the Beats were pretty much ended poetry. It was reduced to "I'm gonna write the first thing that comes into my head no matter what." Which further devolved into the loathsome "poetry slams"; morons jumping on stage and blathering the first thing that came into their heads.

Answer 4

Didn't I respond to this same question a week ago?

Anyhoo, poetry lacks pragmatic use and offers no entertainment. Ergo, most people in the American spectrum are put off by poetry.

Answer 5

Contemporary Poetry or Modern Poetry?
Modern Poetry is good:) Contemporary Poetry is bullshit in the majority od cases... As is contemporary music and everything contemporary... people are more and more ignorant and need less and less to get intellectual satisfaction.

Answer 6

I LOVE poetry, and i`m american.