Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The Relativity of the Difficult Poem

          The best volume of poetry I read this year was probably Ben Lerner’s 2010 book Mean Free Path. I must admit that – though I was intrigued enough to buy it in the first place – I was somewhat surprised by how much I ended up liking it. To put it simply, my tastes tend toward the more accessible and less experimental in poetry, and Mean Free Path has a definitive lean towards the other end of the spectrum. It thrives on loose ends, disruption, and recursion (though this disjointedness is put together in a surprisingly musical manner). I was thus pleasantly surprised when I found it to be one of my favorite books of poetry I’ve read in recent years.
          Now fast forward to the present. I am currently struggling through Dylan Thomas’s Collected Poems and finding myself quite frustrated on occasion. There are poems I just can’t make heads or tails of, no matter how many times I re-read them. I don’t think such a reaction on its own is surprising. Opaqueness of meaning is a trademark of many poets coming out of the Modernist era, and Thomas with his surreal imagery and remarkably dense language is no exception. However, when I started thinking of my reactions to both Lerner and Thomas, it did make me start to wonder about what makes a difficult poem difficult, and if there are any peculiar circumstances that makes certain poets even more difficult to individual readers.
          While most of the points I’m about to discuss are off-the-cuff and not strictly scientific, I do think there is something to this line of thinking.
First, and this is a somewhat elementary point, one needs to consider that poets are writing from a particular time and place. The more alien the time and place may be from the reader, the more difficult it is to understand the poet’s meaning. In the case of Thomas, the culture and language of twentieth-century Wales is not so alien as to make writing from that period difficult, but when one adds his occasional foreign-sounding word choice on top of his already thick poems, it certainly doesn’t help.
But to develop this point further, I think one needs to consider how personal the poetic vision might be when considering a poem’s difficulty. Thomas’s vision seems to me intensely personal, and his poems are laden with symbols and meanings that are originating out of this vision. If one compares this to the poetry of one of Thomas’s contemporaries, say T.S. Eliot, then perhaps what I’m saying becomes a little more evident. To my eyes, Eliot, another “difficult” poet, is much easier to read then Thomas. I think one could argue that part of this is due to Eliot’s verse dealing more with issues of broader cultural impact. Overall, I believe it’s much easier to relate to such verse and find points of access by which one can interpret the poetry.
          Now to return to Lerner. Not only am I reading poems by a contemporary whose peculiar cultural references are more or less familiar, but I believe he is also writing from within a certain zeitgeist to which many people can relate to – i.e., his writing overall deals with larger, more cultural themes than they do with uniquely personal visions. Even though stylistically Lerner might be difficult in many ways, he is writing on a peculiar fragmented, pre-packaged, and marketed culture that many of us can relate to. Personally, this was enough to give me a point of entry into the poetry, while I frequently found such an entry lacking in the verse of Thomas.
          Obviously, this discussion is only looking at a couple particular poets in very broad terms, and rereading it now, I’m already starting to think I'm somewhat off-base. I’m sure there are many exceptions to these points that can poke very large holes in whatever kind of theory I’m trying to craft here. If anyone has wandered over to this post and has any thoughts to share on the topic, please do so.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Poetry: Is There an App for That?

          There’s only one poetry podcast I really listen to regularly, and it’s the Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Off the Shelf. A few weeks ago, they had an interesting installment where host Curtis Fox and guest Tess Taylor took a look at Faber and Faber and Touch Press’s new release of an app for T.S. Eliot’s classic poem The Waste Land. I had never heard of an app for a particular poem, so I was a bit intrigued to hear how publishers are adapting new technology to attract a new generation of readers.
Page from Eliot's original manuscript, with Ezra Pound's handwritten edits.
          I have to admit the discussion left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed. All in all, the product did seem to be loaded with extras – the poem itself (with or without additional notes), the original edited manuscript, commentaries by such luminaries as Seamus Heaney, and video readings by several esteemed actors – and I’m sure there will be diehard fans of the poem will find plenty to enjoy (even if the app was being sold at a hefty $13.99). However, for me at least, nothing really stands out about it. I remember in the 90s when poetry CD-ROMs loaded with similar materials were being touted as a step forward, and I doubt now that many people even remember them now. I don’t really see what will make these apps that much different.
In a way, this app reminds me of DVDs: we initially get wowed by all the included commentaries, the deleted scenes, the outtakes – when all we really end up caring about in the long run is the film itself. And nice, I’m sure, as The Waste Land is in tablet form, the poem by any other name would still be as sweet.
What intrigued me more about this particular podcast was the discussion Fox and Taylor had after they were done reviewing the app. Fox said he could see a time in the foreseeable future where apps became a standard delivery system for poets publishing their works. Taylor countered that she felt people who read would continue to turn to the printed page as a unique ecosystem to escape from all the screen time we are spending increasingly in our lives.
As in most discussions in this vein, the jury is still out on what’s really going to happen. Certainly, longstanding predictions of the demise of the printed book have been greatly exaggerated. And yet, the inroads that have been made by electronic media in recent years simply cannot be ignored. Even somebody like me, who for years has been a luddite defender of the printed page, am starting to cave to the ever-cheapening temptations and advantages of devices like e-readers. In fact, I’m beginning to realize that in some ways, our devotion to the printed page is out of character with many poetry enthusiasts. As a whole, we’re a conscientious bunch – shouldn’t we be sprinting to the “green” pastures of electronic media? What’s stopping us?
I obviously don’t have the answers, but I think part of it lies in what I was implying in a post a couple weeks ago. As we continued to be drowned by this age’s flood of information, we’re fearful of those words we hold dearest to us becoming nothing more than mere information. Poetry holds language sacred, and any change that seems to potentially cheapen that sacredness must be confronted. Perhaps holding to the poem or book as artifact is a way of doing this.
And yet, as I was saying of The Waste Land above, isn’t a poem in any format just as sweet? I suppose it’s debatable, but essentially, the text of the poem remains the same in any media.
Overall, Fox may be on to something, and I believe poetry must come to grips with technological change, particularly if it wants to stay at all relevant to new generations of readers. There may be a time in the not-so-distant future where new volumes of poetry turn increasingly to formats like apps. If so, what are the implications? Would a poet by necessity need to be a better performer for any audio/video functions? How much extra marketing and design would need to go in to make the final product appealing? Or would the poetry itself be enough for those wishing to read it?
It is this last question that makes me pause. I do think readers of poetry will continue to come for the poetry itself. And while poetry may have to come to grips with electronic formats, I think the words are enough to stand on their own. Any extras that might be delivered in something like an app will likely not be what attracts poetry readers.
But enough rambling fence straddling. These are strange and exciting times. Let’s just see what happens.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

An Old Favorite: Robert Frost's "My November Guest"

          Like many people, I associate many of the things I like with certain times of year. Most of these associations are your fairly predictable American standards; for instance, I’ll find myself craving hot dogs with the opening of baseball season, candy corn in October, meat loaf in winter. Each November, however, is when I find myself suddenly yearning after one of my few poetic associations related to the calendar – Robert Frost poetry.
          It’s not completely inexplicable. However, November does seem a bit early for the man who wrote such memorable depth-of-winter classics as “Storm Warning” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” I believe the association for me came from a used vinyl record I picked up during my teenage years of Robert Frost reading some of his poems (I still have the record actually, though my terror of a cat chewed through the wire of our record player several years ago and it has yet to be fixed). I remember one of the first times listening to it was actually on a cold, bleary November day, and on the record, he does a very good recording of “My November Guest,” which is one of my favorite Frost poems and, to me at least, captures perfectly the essence of the month. From that point on, it seems, Frost and November have been inextricably locked in association in my mind.
          The poem is short and, like much of Frost’s work, deceptively simple:

MY Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
  Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
  She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
  She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
  Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
  The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
  And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
  The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
  And they are better for her praise.

          It’s technically an autumn poem, but it’s decidedly late autumn. Most poets traditionally set their autumn poems earlier in the season, when the trees are all lit up brightly with dying leaves, making them a perfect literary symbol. Frost’s poem takes place after that, in the “dark days of autumn rain” when the trees are already “bare.” While the poem does deal with the classic autumn theme of finding inspiration in dark times, the times are definitely darker than usual in Frost’s take. Indeed, if one were to compare it to the classics of Keats, one would find it has much more in common thematically with “Ode on Melancholy” than “To Autumn.”
          I love the poem’s personification of Sorrow. An abstraction – yes – but who hasn’t known somebody like her? I grew up with girls like her. They wore thrift store clothes, they liked picnics in cemeteries, they were only happy when it rained. Like the Sorrow in the poem, they were even a little snooty and pretentious about their dark artistic tastes, thinking others had “no eye for these.” Frost’s characterization of this realistic abstraction is enough to make one wonder if she’s actually based on a real-life companion.
          The opening line of the poem perfectly sets the tone for all that is to come: “My Sorrow, when she’s here with me.” The temporal element does a couple things. First, it sets up this melancholy described in the poem as a peculiarly seasonal sensation, one captured only during that gray, rainy part of late November. More importantly, it sets up the tenuousness of the speaker’s time with Sorrow. This is due not only to the natural seasonality of Sorrow just mentioned, but because Sorrow brings the speaker pleasure and thus by definition she cannot remain Sorrow. Frost is describing one of those delicate and fleeting times that is difficult to capture in words. It is perhaps because of this fleetingness that the speaker chooses not to tell Sorrow he does indeed understand the beauties she thinks he fails to see, but prefers to revel instead in her appreciation of such matters.
          The tone of the poem is quintessential Robert Frost. It is a direct, matter-of-fact tone, formally structured around elegant unforced rhymes and used to communicate much loftier and complex sentiments. In this particular poem, the form really matches the subject matter, which likewise portrays a barren landscape that belies a more sublime, understated beauty.
          Even living in the South, where the weather stays warm enough that November is more often than not really just the beginning of autumn (this year is a good example of that), I still know exactly the kind of cold, gray late November days Frost is describing, and I understand, too, the beauty he sees in their stark and muted scenes. For me, “My November Guest” captures all this – both the physical landscape and one’s emotional response to it – to a t. It’s just one reason that each year as the seasons start to turn from fall to winter, Robert Frost lines suddenly start popping in my head.
What a great poem.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Love Among the Ruins: Reading Poetry in the Information Age

          These past tumultuous few decades, we have witnessed the rise of the personal computer, the rapid dispersal of the World Wide Web, and the emergence of whatever they’re calling this 4G wireless craziness now. Several different monikers have been applied to this time period – the computer age, the digital age, etc. – but the one that’s always captured my imagination the most is the information age, an apt name for a period that has seen such a dramatic proliferation of data. Long gone are the days of depending solely on such quaint resources as libraries, bookstores, TV, and radio for our information. For those of us lucky enough to have access to what is now fairly basic technology, we now have access to a huge universe of information sources in a wide variety of formats.
          One trend that’s always fascinated me about this age is its effect on our reading patterns. 10-15 years ago, experts were already predicting some of the changes that have indeed begun to take place as a result of being alive in a world awash with data. Gone are the days when an individual’s ability to recall information was held in such high esteem (think of the Medieval monks in the pre-printing press days, whose ability to recall large amounts of tracts were invaluable to the preservation and furtherance of knowledge at the time). The paradigm is shifted. Information now is readily reproduced and easily stored. Our memories have been automated. What’s much more important now then simply recalling information is information literacy – i.e., how good we are at navigating and retrieving stored information. As a result, quantity has begun to replace quality, as people are focusing less on a slow analysis of the individual text and more on a rapid sort and search of huge waves of data.
          All of this is a long-winded way of introducing a topic I’ve been wondering about – the effect of the information age on poetry. In so many ways, poetry is antithetical to the trends coming out of this age. For poetry to be effective, it requires a slow reading and absorption. It does its art on a word-by-word basis, with each individual piece composing an essential part of the completed effect. This is in contrast to current trends that encourage the rapid navigation of large amounts of information in order to comprehend the most essential parts.
          This might all sound like a stretch of a point, but I do believe there’s something there. Overall, reading patterns have been changing the past couple of decades. Trends indicate the overall percentage of people reading books – and literature in particular – is steadily declining. Meanwhile, those people who are reading are more frequently turning to a digital environment and looking at multiple sources. I haven’t seen studies for this last point, but I’m also willing to bet that the art of scanning (as opposed to more focused reading) is on the rise. Personally, I know with all the articles or links I come across or are sent to me just during a normal working day that there’s no way I can read them all and still get any work done. And so I scan.
          In a world that was already turning away from poetry, such trends can surely not help. As Ezra Pound famously said, “Concentration is the essence of poetry.” Controversial as Pound could be in many ways, he was on to something with this point. And though he was speaking of it primarily from the writer’s point of view, to fully appreciate and understand poetry, concentration and focus are required on the reader’s side as well. Why did the poet choose such-and-such a word? How does each word work together? Why break the line here? Why this structure? In everyday writing (that prosaic prose), analysis on such a small scale is not as essential – it’s certainly not a bad idea by any means, just not as essential.
          Speaking of poetry in the information age is interesting because poetry, at its best, is not merely information. It’s attempting to communicate something beyond its surface meaning. As we steer more and more towards consumption of larger quantities of information, are we as a culture losing our ability to fully understand and analyze such deeper meanings in writing?
Or perhaps I’m simply reading too much into this.
          Regardless, there always is the opposite viewpoint to consider. To those who read it, poetry offers a welcome respite from the data glut of the information age. Much as the subject matter in poems is often used to make the reader slow down and think about everyday things in a different light, the language of poetry is such as to bring the reader into a meaningful engagement with language. That same language that the reader slings around thoughtlessly in everyday life is suddenly reinvigorated with a deliberation and intensity that gives one pause. Poetry reminds us that language can be so much more than mere information; it can do wondrous and strange things. . . if only one takes the time necessary to concentrate on it.
          Perhaps there isn’t much to all this. Long before the advent of computers, poetry had already been in a steady decline, and poets themselves have oftentimes appeared to even purposefully isolate themselves from a general readership (one thinks of certain Modernists). There does, however, seem to be some trends in the information age that are poised to hasten this decline. There will always be people who read poetry and are moved by the mysteries of its language, but is there even reason to hope that poetry will ever reverse its trends and achieve more than a small, specialized readership? The cards are stacked against it, at this point. Yet it will be interesting to see how poets and various organizations intent on just such a tide change attempt to stay relevant in a world seemingly intent on making it less so.