Behind the poetry curtain

A post on friend and fellow poet Christine Swint's blog Balanced on the Edge and a phone conversation with BFF&P (that's best friend forever and poet) Cherryl Floyd-Miller last week has me thinking about the state of my own work -- and poetics in general.

If you've followed the blog or my Facebook page, you'll know that I have not abandoned poetry. As a matter of fact, I've got two readings coming up in Atlanta in February (check the sidebar of the blog for all the upcoming readings) and I'll be attending the Split This Rock Poetry Festival in March and sitting on a panel with Jericho Brown, Dan Vera, Francisco Aragón, Samiya Bashir, Reginald Harris and Joseph Ross. I've also been writing new poetry and made my first submissions of 2010 last weekend.

I'm continually asked if I've given up poetry for fiction now that Conquering Venus has been published and I'm working on the other two books in the trilogy. The answer is no. I was writing poetry long before plays, fiction,and American Idol recaps, so I have no plans to ever abandon poetry.

I have a completed manuscript that's about 60-odd pages long and I plan to submit it this year. Not to any contests, because I refuse to play that lottery anymore, but to presses with open reading periods and micro-presses looking for new manuscripts by established poets. Self-publishing remains a viable and increasingly attractive option. Nearly every poem in this collection has been previously published in both print and online journals. It's been vetted by editors I trust and who liked the work enough to publish it and nominate it for Best of the Web and Pushcarts.

I am outside academia, outside the current "movements," outside whatever Mary Oliver is writing. My poetry remains personal, confessional, sexual, profane. I still enjamb with "the". Now, more than ever, I have nothing to lose when it comes to poetry, and that is a very liberating feeling. I have achieved more than I ever thought possible with poetry. I've published a collection and two chapbooks I'm still quite proud of, flaws and all. I've had the opportunity to travel and read all over the country and abroad. I've had the pleasure to meet and befriend many of my poetry role models.

So, where does a poet like me go from here? Since I have no desire to teach, obtain an MFA or compromise my work so that maybe a big or well-regarded indie press will publish me, the only goal I have is to continue writing poetry that resonates with me and putting it out through any means possible so that it might resonate with others. I have been writing prose poetry, experimenting with form and drawing more and more of my inspiration from music, film and literature other than poetry.

I read a good bit of poetry – much of it doesn't move me. If it does, you'll see a review or mention on Modern Confessional. I'm not wasting my time -- or yours -- on books that I don't like or would never recommend. I still firmly believe that the notion of "good" and "bad" poetry is impossible to quantify, that it comes down to gut emotion and personal aesthetic. Many get practically weepy over the light verse of a Hallmark card, while others rhapsodize over Jorie Graham's "difficult" poetry.

I'm sure some of you have already read Patrick Gillespie's hotly debated blog post called Let Poetry Die, where he makes this bold statement:

The best thing that could happen to poetry is to drive it out of the universities with burning pitch forks. Starve the lavish grants. Strangle them all in a barrel of water. Cast them out. The current culture, in which poetry is written for and supported by poets has created a kind of state-sanctioned poetry that resists innovation. When and if poetry is ever made to answer to the broader public, then we may begin to see some great poetry again – the greatness that is the collaboration between audience and artist.

As to be expected, this has caused a howl among the academic set, but it's a spot-on summation of poetry today. Poetry is far from dead, nor is it on life-support. It's just been spirited away from public consciousness and into the halls of universities and MFA programs. It is, as I have stated on this blog more than once, become a big circle jerk.

There are dozens of comments on this essay -- many generated because Andrew Sullivan linked to the post -- and Patrick has done a grand job of responding to the often angry and indignant poets who hate when the curtain is pulled back on their Oz-like existence. In response to a comment about self-publishing and those who publish online, Patrick has this to say:

But there’s considerable contempt, if not hostility, directed at self-published poets and on-line poets. And my experience has been that most of this derision comes from poets and editors who are vested in the institutionalized venues I criticized. I can only speculate that their hostility is self-interested. Some of the better known poets have been quite successful in playing the game (and actually having to test their merit outside the system might not go too well). They’ve established themselves as tritons among minnows, so why spoil it?

I couldn't have said it better. My late new year's resolution is to continue running in the other direction from all of this. To embrace what the establishment pushes away, to appeal to readers outside the insular world of poetry, to help push the minnows upstream.

Comments

Liz said…
Interesting, Collin, love what Patrick has to say and the way that he says it...cheers! : )
Justin Evans said…
Damned right!
I think in 100 years from now the poets most remembered and still read will be those with gut and blood on their pages.
christine said…
When I first read your poems in MiPo I knew right away you had a special talent. I know that's not what this post is about, but I just wanted to get that on the table. You even have a Pushcart nomination for 2009, the same year CV was launched. That you've written a novel will only make you a better poet, and vice versa. Look at Margaret Atwood!

I agree with you, I react to poetry on an emotional level too, a gut reaction. It has to sing, or even screech! I haven't been to Java Monkey speaks much (I'd like to go more), but that's a local venue where the true spirit of poetry lives. Poetry is the art of the people. We don't need to go to a special school to know how to write poems. We only have to listen and respond.

For me, writing is like what the character Polly says in the movie "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing," when someone asks her why she does her art. "I do it for the kicks."

Thanks for another great post, Collin, and for the link. :-)
Cherryl Floyd-Miller said…
now that is a crown i can wear like a diva: BFF&P. what i really love about our convos, Capote is the fact that we each leave the other with a whole lotta belly laughter and some new jumping off point. i will always treasure those moments and the poems that result because of them.
January said…
Amen! I like the idea of embracing what the establishment pushes away, because that's what poetry does so well at its core.
Rupert said…
Nice Post! I'm reading in a few weeks at the Southern Hunmanities Conf in Asheville - gonna bring some hyper-talk, Java Monkey Bizness to the academy - should be fun . . . I hope, lol
carolee said…
i am similarly trying to find my own path and it's wonderful to read about how others are getting it done.
Dana said…
I've been talking with Patrick since he posted his post. I like a lot of what he has to say. I'm glad to see you like it, too. And yes to your impulses and the direction you are taking.
David said…
Right on. One of my favorite Collin posts ever.

(What do you think about letting this or some version of this go up on the TEA?)
Collin Kelley said…
David, yes, feel free to share it far and wide.
You had these two statements in close proximity to each other. Just thought I'd juxtapose them:

"As to be expected, this has caused a howl among the academic set, but it's a spot-on summation of poetry today. Poetry is far from dead, nor is it on life-support. It's just been spirited away from public consciousness and into the halls of universities and MFA programs. It is, as I have stated on this blog more than once, become a big circle jerk.

...

But there’s considerable contempt, if not hostility, directed at self-published poets and on-line poets. And my experience has been that most of this derision comes from poets and editors who are vested in the institutionalized venues I criticized. I can only speculate that their hostility is self-interested. Some of the better known poets have been quite successful in playing the game (and actually having to test their merit outside the system might not go too well). They’ve established themselves as tritons among minnows, so why spoil it?"

I can't comment on any hard feelings from the academic set, but it seems like you've got your own contempt and hostility directed at the poets/poetry scenes you don't like.

I don't think it has to be ugly on both sides. Cause then it's just one big "circle jerk" of ugliness, instead of people who enjoy poetry finding common ground.
Collin Kelley said…
Not contempt, just disappointment. I've been in the po'biz long enough to see how much contempt there is from the academics toward the spoken word and slam poets, bloggers, online journals, etc. It's not completely systemic, but pretty damn close. It's self-interest and ignorance. That's why the gap between academic and spoken word and those outside academia continues to widen.

I'm sure there are many outside the establishment who would be happy to find common ground, but it has to be a two way street.

Thanks for reading and getting into the conversation.

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