Some people need to know their lane is what I am saying, and everything doesn't beg a blog post by the peanut gallery.

One type of blogger phrase has always bothered me - when a blogger comments on something another blogger has said with something like, "He gets it," or "This strikes me as pretty true." It's approval, but conditional approval. I'm waiting for a time when a blogger replies to something like that by saying, "Your agreement with me is almost completely on the money."

See also: Painting and sculpture in the post-photographic era.

Perhaps someone more educated than I will offer some perspective on if/how poetry changed in the post-novel era, and if it did change, whether it suffered from the same detachment from popular culture that befell painting and sculpting. That detachment promotes artwork that speaks to an ever diminishing, ever more academic/ theoretical audience.

I'm not suggesting that nothing of interest, beauty or value has come out of painting and sculpture in the post-photographic era, but frankly most of it is crap, and the percentage of BS is orders of magnitude greater than in the infinitely more vibrant world of popular arts.

I have no opinion as to whether Elizabeth Alexander is a deserving target of the drubbing that's be served up; nor am I suggesting that all art should be served up in easy to digest chicken-nugget sized pieces. But there's a lot of dissembling (aka BSing) that goes on behind the cloak of high-brow culture and the accompanying condescension.

The other thing about some blogs is the censorship of dissent. If Coates puts something up that people don't agree with unless they are trolling he allows dissent. But many blogs on both the left and the right will cut your access if you dissent. So not only are a lot of bloggers putting out bad info that they aren't even familiar with, they have also fashioned their own echo chamber where their commentors will either agree with them or stay silent so they can keep their account.

I am still tripping about how many people have been banned from openleft just for having a different point of view. Blogs are great in theory, but just like anything else it can invite bad behavior.

Yeah. I mean, if people want a poet they are more likely to understand, I think it would be great if Obama added another. Namely, I'd recommend Derek Walcott, whose work the President-Elect apparently enjoys reading. I know that it's supposed to be an American moment and everything. But Walcott would rip shit up, because that man, at his age, is still fiery and hilarious when something rubs him the wrong way.

Ah, my fantasy world... such an exciting place.

Then again, I have a degree in poetry and sometimes find it difficult to flesh out my writing to a length that people would take seriously.

However, if Obama takes her suggestion of switching in Nas to read, all would be forgiven.

I suspect you're right about the trend. In an interesting way, it also confirms another racist habit - to conflate one black poet with another- this time taken up the part of folks who were, like me, put to sleep by Maya Angelou's loooooong Clinton invocation.

Well, no, your kid couldn't, although if he (or you!) actually TRIED, you might begin to understand how difficult it is, and how much is going on in Pollock, and how much there can be to appreciate once you actually begin to SEE.

I used to sympathize with the anti-elitists, but life is too fucking short.

Shaun

Maya Angelou's writing may not be as fine poetry, but she was a better choice for a public event, when the interaction with the poem is by hearing, not be reading, and thus works less well when the poem is harder to get on the first go-round. Who can't be moved by "Still I Rise" or "On the Pulse of Morning" on first blush? (Second or third blush, at least for "On the Pulse of Morning," doesn't serve the poem quite so well.) This is for many millions of Americans, many of whom don't have the literary education to get allusions, or the literacy to get high-falutin vocabulary or complex syntax -- but who deserve to hear, and are smart enough for, a poem that inspires and moves them. It would be nice if they go back and re-read it in the newspaper the next day, but they shouldn't have to.

Nas writes poetry meant to be heard. It rewards study, but you can dig it the first time you hear it. I have my doubts about whether Elizabeth Alexander can accomplish the same. On the other hand, she knows the nature of her task, and she may change up her game for the day at least.

Then again, the kind of criticism EA is enduring now pales in comparison with the visciousness of the reactions every time a new Poet Laureate is appointed in the UK. I just learned recently that the Poet Laureate there is funded by a non-governmental body, a vintner that makes sherry in fact, which takes the position very seriously. The PL gets paid in cases of sherry.

A lot of the problem here is that we don't take it seriously enough.

Moses smell the roses. Wake me up when the adults have come back to town.

I only skimmed the other posts you linked, but the one says that Alexander was nominated for a Pulitzer and this is apparently evidence that she sucks? And another seems to be arguing that there haven't been any good poets born after 1874 and we should just give up on poetry... or something. It's just nuts. These people really obviously have no clue what they're talking about.

Yes, and?

you could read some of mine
at my blog
excepting the data drives
there crashed completely. . .

there is some here though too

http://heretics.bravehost.com/sn.html

all of this fuss abot
MOMENTS of the Inaugural
are pretty much
silly

Cuz the really best comparison isn't to Frost or Angelou, it's to Kipling. He composed "Recessional" for Victoria's Jubilee, and it'd make a good model, or at least an analogy for Alexander's opportunity: a standard to live up to, or fall short of.

Kipling originally wrote "The White Man's Burden" for the Jubilee. (That's generally misunderstood. Not that it isn't, um, an exclusionary piece of work, but it was originally targetted more toward the Kaiser's Germany and exalts the rule of law and advances in nutrition and medicine, in a racist 19th century imperialist way.)

But to his credit, Kipling decided telling Britain to pay any price and bear any burden to ensure the survival and success of liberty wasn't what he wanted to say for such an occasion. It's what people expected.

It's not exactly comparable, of course -- Victoria in 1897 epitomized Britain at its peak, which doesn't characterize America in 2009. (I hope not, anyway.) But the inauguration of a new President after the last 8 years, much less the first African-American President, isn't wholly UNlike the burst of patriotic good feelings that the Diamond Jubilee represented.

I wonder if Alexander (assuming she is writing something for the occasion) will zig when everybody else is zagging, as Kipling did when instead of writing a predictable celebration, he wrote about how justice is more important than power.

'Course, if she just wrote THAT, it'd be predictable, especially for Obama. So that'd be the real Kipling standard -- to say something memorably righteous... and unexpected.

Whaddaya think?

(I also think that Packer, like much of the New Yorker stable, is held in rather higher regard than he deserves. But that's neither here nor there.)

This too shall pass.

No, I am not arguing that you, or anyone else should "give up on poetry."

I am suggesting that in some quarters poetry, like a few other increasingly arcane forms, is held in a queer sort of esteem; and that supporters of these forms are often resort to dismissiveness or even derisiveness when making their case for the continued relevance of these forms; and that this dismissiveness and derisiveness may account for the sharp reaction that Ms. Alexander has received.

See also; theater, ballet, documentary films

"If u r not an expert, put yo voicebox on mute, lol"

What I may sometimes suspect, though, is that this depth exists in their minds and consciousness rather than in the object they happen to be paying attention to.

1.) I can't think of a single art-form, where it isn't true that, as you say, "some supporters...often resort to dismissiveeness or even derision when making their case for the continued relevance of these forms." Even in rap, which is considered pretty low brow, there are snobs. There are rock snobs, movie snobs, rpg snobs, comic book snobs etc.. Poetry really isn't special in that regard.

2.) 1Even if that's true, it doesn't make any of those arguments ("Affirmative Action poet" "No poetry since 1874 ") true. It may be that supporters--somewhere, in some time--are dismissive of the masses.

Right, because quoting a few "bad" lines--if we agree with that, everyone doesn't--proves that a poet is bad. Just like pulling a scene from an actor allows you to make sweeping statements about their career. That's exactly what the world needs more. 30 second experts on everything. More please.

Apples and oranges, TNC. You're talking about snobbery within a form, I'm talking about snobbery of form; and then using that snobbery to demagogue taste and culture in a way that seems (to me) strikingly similar to the way that some peopledemagogue sex and morality.

1Even if that's true, it doesn't make any of those arguments ("Affirmative Action poet" "No poetry since 1874 ") true. It may be that supporters--somewhere, in some time--are dismissive of the masses.

Well of course "no poetry since 1874" is as preposterous as saying there's been no painting, or even no worthwhile painting since the invention of photography.

No the less, the mid/late nineteenth century brought tectonic shifts in art and culture. Industrialization, urbanization, and invention of new forms all played a part. If you haven't already read Michael Ondaatje's "The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing" you might enjoy it; especially with how you go on about long-form magazine writing. "The Conversation" reads like a brilliant Atlantic magazine 200 page interview with a fascinating but largely unknown polymath. Don't know if it's available for Kindle.

Actually no. It's true that in my example you have snobbery in form--but it isn't one or the other, it's both. I'm talking about Run-DMC dissing rock. I'm talking about EPMD dissing R&B as not "real music." I'm talking about TV-heads dismissing video games as a total waste of time. I'm talking about people who love movies complaining that TV sucks. And so on...

Extra-genre snobbery is really, in no respect, particular to poetry, or even more common in poetry. The form is, as other forms are.

As for point two, I'm really only disputing the stuff the people I cited wrote. That's my beef. My only beef. I make no argument against 19th century art.

I mean, I don't read poetry and my familiarity with Elizabeth Alexander is limited to doing the same thing that it appears most of the professionals did: googling her name and reading her website, but geez maybe if you feel a little revolted by that passage it's because that's the reaction the writer was hoping for.

Eh, but what do I know?

Certainly imprimatur plays a role in how art is received; and not just by critics and audiences. For example, two Summer's ago, the same night that police were being sent to prevent the premiere of my film "Ashley and Kisha" at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, "Destricted" was playing across town at ACMI.

Perhaps that and other similar experiences have made me particularly sensitive to what Murch calls "out of the frame information".

Or perhaps those experiences have made me just the right amount of sensitive. ;-)

Then I misunderstood. I have a particular hard-on for any forms that claim they need special support because audiences are too vulgar in their tastes to appreciate theater/opera/whatever-high-brow-arcane-form. I don't expect will see tax deductible donation supporting rap albums any time soon.

And certain I've ended up on the wrong side of the "real art" debate. In fact, I've taken that shot right on the chin more than once. Sometimes I'm not sure why I keep getting back in the ring...

Poetry is often most appreciated by people who I call the twice-born, who have gone through some kind of dark night of the soul down to the depths and come back out again, humbled and amazed by humanity, with their insides restrung. Or they are people who have had some kind of mystical experience that hit them like lightning and they survived it without going mad and they let the power of that experience restring them into something and someone different than they were before.

But we don't talk about these kinds of things in the intellectual world --- and many who do talk about them loudly are the ones who are the most afraid of them. The people I most appreciate who know poetry and live poetry are the ones who have been shaken to the bone quietly and strongly. And if you quote a line of poetry, they will answer with another line from another poet. And there is a conversation there.

You say you like Stephen Dunn. He talks about this in one of my favorite poems called "mon semblable." On the surface he is talking about love and certainly I was drawn to the poem because the feeling mirrored a tremendous love in my life. However, as I have lived with this poem almost 10 years after the homegoing of my love, I have come to see that at another level, the poem is about poetry and the circle of people who learn from and with poetry in their lives.

He says,

"Anonymous among strangers
I look for those
with hidden wings,

and for scars
that those who once had wings
can't hide."

When people can't appreciate or understand the language of music, dance or poetry, they are missing something important to their humanity.

Which evinces real cluelessness on Kevin's part about how poetry works. A 24-line poem is not necessarily going to survive having nine lines sliced out of it (because if it could, the poet would have done that herself), and anyway, why not (besides copyright infringement) just go ahead and quote all 24?

When I first heard about the selection, I did not recognized Elizabeth Alexander's name, so I just assumed I'd never heard of her. Even if you are into poetry, there are a lot of poets out there. But now that you've posted the Hottentot Venus poem, I realize that I have, because I know I've read those unforgettable lines before. And I am not even usually well-disposed to historical persona poems.

Well-educated people of a certain social stratum hate seeming ignorant of certain things that would reveal them to be philistines, and poetry is one of those things. (I think Matt Yglesias recently wrote a post about lying about what books you've read. That's so Harvard it hurts.) So what they do instead is to trot out some cliched, safe response and hope no one notices. In the case of poetry, the safe response is that they like Shakespeare and Keats, and if they want to get fancy either Milton or T.S. Eliot, and the reality is that no one notices most of the time.

Black poets have set up cultural institutions (like Cave Canem) and participate in literary endeavors that sometimes even white poets are ignorant of, so I guess I'm not surprised that when people encounter a heretofore unknown Black poet, they immediately think either, "rap," "slam poet," or "angry Black issue poet." Not that those styles don't have merit, but the world of Black poetry is far larger than that. And then to compare her to those received ideas and find her lacking!

I really like many of her poems that were posted on line. My thanks to the future president for pointing her out.

Isn't the point of the poet laureate to help us notice a poet of our own that many of us have overlooked, and to remind us that poetry that we might find interesting is being written in our country today?

Race

Sometimes I think about Great-Uncle Paul who left Tuskeegee,
Alabama to become a forester in Oregon and in so doing
became fundamentally white for the rest of his life, except
when he travelled without his white wife to visit his siblings —
now in New York, now in Harlem, USA — just as pale-skinned,
as straight-haired, as blue-eyed as Paul, and black. Paul never told anyone
he was white, he just didn’t say that he was black, and who could imagine,
an Oregon forester in 1930 as anything other than white?
The siblings in Harlem each morning ensured
no one confused them for anything other than what they were, black.
They were black! Brown-skinned spouses reduced confusion.
Many others have told, and not told, this tale.
When Paul came East alone he was as they were, their brother.

You say Elizabeth Alexander is a good poet. I honestly can't agree with you at this point, in that her work seems rather long-winded and contrived, BUT, I am open to changing my mind. Why don't you write a good rich post explaining in detail, with some close readings, what it is that you find good or exceptional in her work? I don't want a PhD thesis, but I think some real analysis of what you see would be good.

I agree with those who say that the rush to judgment is unfair - how about you taking a stand, calling for a rethink, and showing the non-fans why they should rate Alexander more than they do? Right now we seem to be in the equivalent of the kids in the playground yelling "Is not", "Is too" when Alexander's poetry is discussed as "good" or "bad". Take us past that stage.

Somebody nailed snobbery once: if nobody had ever heard of it, damned few of us would ever even fall in love.

Listen for Alexander to say something short, and new -- that will stay with us, cuz we didn't expect it.

Not to excuse Drum for being an ass, but this is sort of my point. Why on earth would anyone feel like a philistine for not knowing contemporary poetry fer krists sakes? Except then you read zackboston's post, and he makes it sound like some secret club, and you must have a hole in your heart if you don't get it; and I can't help but get the feeling that just like Art with a capital A, it's Poetry with a captial P; and much (most?) of the time, who the publisher is is as good, if not a better indicator of the "quality" of the poetry as one could ever get from simply reading the poem in question.

I almost never do this dude, but what you're asking of me, I just can't do. It would take more than you think it would--something like that can't just be jotted down. See the notes on the Venus Hottentot poem or some of the comments to get an idea of what people are moved by in her work.

But to your assessment, I think your missing the point of my argument--it isn't that any of these folks should like Alexander's work. People say W.S. Merwin is one of the greats--I just never got it. People have a right to their own individual tastes. But it is incredibly, incredibly, weak to yank lines from a poem and act like they're representative, to call someone's work "Affirmative Action poetry," to infer that the only reason Alexander is up there is because she knows Obama--like these muthafuckas never caught a break in their lives, to spend a few minutes scrolling through a few poems on the web and then draw broad conclusions.

That ain't right. She may not be your cup of tea, and that's fine. There will be many things at the inauguration that I'm not going to like either. So? Why is that important?

They did her wrong man. Nothing anyone says in this thread can undo that fact. Nothing anyone says will make it right for someone to call a Pulitzer Prize nominee's work "Affirmative Action poetry for an Affirmative Action president."

Your point is a separate argument about artistic snobbery. But the fact that said snobs exist, doesn't make it right to wholesale dismiss the form, or one of its practitioners. It's just sloppy. Jazz has it share of snobbery--Wyntonism--do we then say it's open season on Joshua Redmond? One doesn't make the other right.

If you want a thread on the merits--or demerits, rather--of artistic snobbery, we can go there. But that really shouldn't be conflated with that Packer piece. There's nothing "of the people" in anything those guys wrote.

I don't think the fact that Drum is being an ass means you have to take what BrianAkira says about this (or anything else) seriously. All that BrianAkira has shown is that s/he lives near a library and can shower often enough to be let in to use the computers.

Your point is a separate argument about artistic snobbery. But the fact that said snobs exist, doesn't make it right to wholesale dismiss the form, or one of its practitioners. It's just sloppy. Jazz has it share of snobbery--Wyntonism--do we then say it's open season on Joshua Redmond? One doesn't make the other right.

Just this morning we were listening to Herb Albert and Chuck Mangioni here at Casa Comstock. And no, one doesn't make the other right, but (as you often say) it might help to understand where people are coming from,

If you want a thread on the merits--or demerits, rather--of artistic snobbery, we can go there. But that really shouldn't be conflated with that Packer piece. There's nothing "of the people" in anything those guys wrote.

Well if you're taking requests... but in fairness, I've kind of flipped out and ended up jacking the thread because when I end up on the wrong side of the "But is it art?" question, the police show up. It can make a guy a little touchy.

That doesn't make it right, but at least you know where I'm coming from. ;-)

But in the final analysis, two things will come of this. (a) Some people who would never have liked Alexander anyways will have read ten or so lines and decided they don't like her. (b) Some people who had never heard of her before will have discovered her. Me, for instance, for which I think you. Also, a few of my readers.

And that's a great thing.

Miles,
You have to understand the inside-baseball stuff of the poetry business to get that argument. There's a big group of people who, in my opinion, take a contrarian position much like music snobs and say that anything that falls outside their particular aesthetic is necessarily bad. Suffice to say that I find most of those people--some of whom are colleagues and friends of mine--to be pompous, self-important gits when talking about poetry. Perfectly decent people otherwise, but real pains when talking about poems.

So Alexander's nomination for a Pulitzer, or for that matter, her mentor Walcott's Nobel, are proof to these people that they're stale, academic poets without any real fire for poetry. It's like the music snob who thinks that any band who actually gets radio play has automatically sold out and now sucks. Know how aggravating those people are? That's who is hating on Alexander right now.

Funny thing, hilzoy--Robert Frost's poem, at least the one he read for JFK, is probably more in line with Newsmax's politics than most. "The Gift Outright" is one of the more Euro-centric, white-privilege-laden poems of that period.

a) people like the stuff within their own field of experience or taste

b) people dislike poets who have made it by (they would argue) cultivating the system rather than talent

The two are not the same, and your linkage of them is neither good logic nor fair to those who dislike the incestuous worlds of academia and poetry.

"So Alexander's nomination for a Pulitzer, or for that matter, her mentor Walcott's Nobel, are proof to these people that they're stale, academic poets without any real fire for poetry. It's like the music snob who thinks that any band who actually gets radio play has automatically sold out and now sucks..."

Brian, you did make the link between the two attitudes, and gave every impression of condemning them as the same thing. They are clearly different, and should not be taken as linked. Yes, I am afraid you are making a false connection and confusing the two approaches. They are not the same thing, and by trying to connect them as you did, you are being unfair to critics of the corrupt and nepotistic world of academic poetry by suggesting that they are the same as people of rigid taste and conservative attitudes.

By this standard, nobody would ever debate or think about anything outside a very narrow field of experience. Should we all take a pass on criticizing eg, George Bush? Should we simply ignore eg Darfur?

And I have to say that your title is pretty embarrassing. There are plenty of things that people know nothing about and don't understand (computer manuals, home improvements, the linguistic history of Armenian etc) but they certainly don't fear them. Often they ignore them, laugh about them, or simply go and do something else that they do understand. It's silly to imply that people fear Alexander's work because they "don't understand" it. You might find some people agreeing that they don't get it - but I think you could walk round New York for a good few years before you found anyone who "feared" it in any way, shape or form.

I believe in love,
But how can men who've never seen light
Be enlightened?
Only if he's cured
Will his spirit's future level
Ever heighten.

Perhaps you are not one of the people I'm describing, jacinthpeduncle. I assume you aren't, as a matter of fact. But those people do exist, I promise you.

I feel like I've threadjacked enough, by the way, so feel free to take the last word on this.

But that isn't what I said. In fact, I pointed you to a post just below where I--me, myself, TNC--analyzed one of Alexander's poems and told you to read that, and the comments, which were pretty good. Furthermore, you've very cleverly changed your initial request.

Here is what you initially asked:
"Why don't you write a good rich post explaining in detail, with some close readings, what it is that you find good or exceptional in her work?"

In your second post that became me telling you "what I liked" about her work.

But the main point--which I will restate here again--is that you don't have to like her work. The argument in this thread isn't "Everyone should like Alexander's poetry," its don't make sweeping statements about people--and genres--after scrolling through a few pages on the net. No more. No less.

* Who actually is Canadian, now that I think of it. Why couldn't notional Obama find a good Amerian poet?

That's all.

Back to your regularly scheduled debate.

You win.

That does not need to become a statement on whether she is a good poet or not. Anyone who saw Blago quoting Kipling's schlock the other day can see that there is a time and a place for poetry, and I personally don't feel an inauguration is the time and place. Or a press conference, either, frankly.

But I still think she is awesome, so why not honor her anyway? She has GOT to be better than a certain person who read at another inauguration. That other person is nice lady, to be sure, and deserving of respect, but not a good reader and not my favorite poet. I waited patiently for her poem to end on the radio, out of respect.

TNC, I think you are right that folks are taking a stand on things they don't understand. And I think these people probably do it more than we realized before. The first commenter was right: when you have a blog, this is what you're expected to do.

Thanks for pushing this and demanding a more honest appraisal. I hope they respond with something more substantive and less, well, MEAN.

On a purely personal note on poetry, for most of my 40 odd years I was a conscienious objector to poetry. I didn't get most of it, didn't care, and generally ignored it. I never thought it was poetry's fault, just not my thing.

But recently on a whim I downloaded the 100 greatest poems from Audible and listened to it. (100 greatest= 100 most anthologized for what its worth). As the poetry unfolded, I started to make a connection to some of it that I never made in the past. Listening to Keats "To Autumn" while driving to work through a Southern California Suburban commute" is a bit surreal, but it was a revelation as well. I enjoyed Frost and particulary Gerard Manley Hopkins.

No doubt poetry enthusiasts will regard my taste as banal or pedestrian. That's okay, it probably is. But I think my point is that poetry has a unique knack of sneaking up on you at the oddest times. And maybe Ms. Alexanders poetry will do that on Inaugeration Day. Stranger things have happend.

The following excerpts may have been stolen and transcribed from Common's Dictaphone. Everything recorded was supposed to make up his forthcoming unofficial auto-fictional-biography, entitled "Common: I Used To Love H.E.R (But Now I Am Realising My True Dream Of Being A Bit-Part Hollywood Actor)."

JANUARY: "Thinking back on my childhood, hippity-hop was really only a minor player. I mean, I used to be a pretty shit hot basketball player, actually. I could drink like a motherfucker, too. But, honestly? It was always the lure of the silver screen that attracted me most... I remember sneaking into the cinema during matinee shows - my friends would go and watch the Saturday cartoons, but I was watching ‘Scarface.’ I remember it so clearly, this epiphany moment, studying F. Murray Abraham's glorious bit-part rendition of Omar Suarez... Fuck Al Pacino, I knew at that PRECISE MOMENT that I would end up being the greatest bit-part Hollywood actor of all-time. Top five dead or alive... Good times... Then that bastard Abraham went and won on Oscar the next year. Sell-out. LIL KANYE! Clear my schedule for the next 48 hours - I feel good, ya little bitch! I think I might release another album this summer!"

I agree with you entirely. I consider myself quite well-informed, and as a consequence can be an insufferable ass (at least online) who is completely confident of his opinion. But I am the first to acknowledge that I know very little about poetry, and so I don't consider myself in any position to judge what is and isn't a good poem. I know what I like, but my vast inexperience with the genre doesn't qualify me to offer an opinion so ill-informed. Unfortunately, not all very smart people are as humble as myself! And as I noted on one of the blogs you link to, poetry and modern art are popular targets of the peons. Whereas reading an entire novel or listening to an entire composition requires time and effort and some amount of discipline, any jackass can read 25 lines of verse or glance at a painting and opine that it sucks.