Okay, you've written a poem. So what?
I am currently reading a collection of poems which are all well crafted, lyrical, ‘poetic’. Focussing on a limited palette in terms of theme - the natural world, the impact of lockdown, solitude - they all pretty much hit the mark; when you turn the page, as a reader you know what you’re going to get.
Which is all fine, isn’t it?
Yet when I finish reading one of these poems increasingly my reaction is ‘so what?’ Apart from diverting me for a minute or two, has the poem moved me in any way or made ‘a difference’? If I hadn’t read it - or, indeed, if it hadn’t been written - would my life be diminished in any way?
And it’s not just this book. More and more these days I find myself feeling a sense of deflation when I get to the end of a contemporary poem. Which begs a question, doesn’t it?
What is a poem for?
And this all comes back to why the poem has been written in the first place - and for whom it has been written.
The vast majority of poems - both ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ - are selfish endeavours, written by people for themselves in order to describe an experience or work something through. Writing such poetry is often self-medication or exorcism or therapy. You see this evidenced in contemporary single-theme collections where the poet is riffing on one subject, often ‘difficult’ or complex - and intensely personal.
Yes, those poems are more likely to resonate with people who have had - or are having - similar experiences, and undoubtedly some of the pieces will be very powerful, moving, exceptional. But when faced with poem after poem all about X or Y, I become alienated - which invariably means the ‘good stuff’ gets lost.
Of course there is nothing wrong in a poet writing for themselves, and to do so in order to resolve a personal issue, make their place in the world more secure, improve their feeling about themselves. We all do it, right?
But what about the reader?
I have no issue in someone using the unique power of poetry in order to explore their relationship with the world, to understand the lived experience. But publishers these days seem happy enough to foist collections lacking any outward perspective onto the reading public. (Carcanet are the publishers of the book I am currently reading - as they were of the previous one I read and which suffered from even greater ‘narrowness’.) As a reader I want to learn something along the way, to be moved, to find that individual’s experience unwrapped and made more universal; I want the poem to give me an alternative view on something.
“Tell the truth but tell it slant” - Emily Dickinson
Perhaps our ability to achieve this is gradually being lost in our increasingly ‘me-centric’ world where ‘worth’ is less about what we might do for others (e.g. inspire, move, educate our readers) and more about how we promote ourselves (e.g. cultivating likes and followers).
The modern-day poet is more likely to hold up a mirror to themselves than offer us a lens through which to see the world.
So who should a poet write for?
If your desire is to be read, I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that you should be writing more for others than yourself; that the most important person in the transaction is the reader, not the poet.
If you want to write something that is so narrowly focussed that it only has meaning in relation to your own existence, then fine - but perhaps keep it to yourself.
However, right or wrong, this black-and-whiteness leaves me with a huge problem.
Firstly, what about my own poetry? Or at least my contemporary work. In my recent collection Grimsby Docks I have tried to use the poems to speak about urban decay, our relationship to history; I have attempted to see the fabric of the place as metaphor for the lived experience. And not my life, I hasten to add; there is nothing autobiographical in the book.
Have I succeeded? I can’t possibly say. Only readers of the collection are qualified to pass comment.
The second and much larger problem is this: if poetry has the power to move and educate, to protest and explain, but it does not do so, then what’s the point of it? Or of all the millions of poems written every year? The dozens of poems that will have been written while I have been typing this? All those bland Instagram-ready ditties…
The step between that somewhat existential position - “what’s the point” - to giving up poetry altogether is, in my case, I fear an increasingly narrowing one…
WHY DO I WRITE?
Why I write or the reason why anyone should want to write can be complex. Alternatively, it is simple, because we have something to say and want or need to deliver a message. That is where a problem can occur when we opt for a format to express ourselves. It is the format that really does matter. I can recall poems that have had an effect on me. Seamus Heaney in his poem ‘Mid-term Break’ still causes my voice to falter in reading the last stanza. It’s the emotion he generated being aided and abetted by my own experiences. If that one is not enough then I recall ‘The Road to Derry’ where poetically he mourns ‘the thirteen men lay dead’. I say, poetry at its best. But some do not understand poetry, or want to or its purpose. And that is where the problem lies.
A while ago within our writing group the idea of the ‘unwritten word’ was discussed in the sense that images, murals, graffiti, street art are instantaneous. The message is easy to see.
Two events over the past weekend have identified clearly what can be generated through the media by filming protest.
In London, Gideon Falter, was advised not to cross the street where a pro-Palestinian march was taking place. He is Jewish and could be identified as such as he was wearing a skull cap. He has been the head of Campaign Against Anti-Semitism for ten years. These facts are clear. Suppose I was to say that he knew there was an anti-Israeli protest occurring and that his presence alone could be dangerous. What transpired was a confrontation with uniform police officers who are there to ‘keep the peace’, which is their primary objective. He has complained, requested the head of the Metropolitan Police to resign and received an apology. That is the power in seeing things. Nothing has to be written. Blame for this situation will require words!
This morning on CNN the Rabbi at Columbus University in New York advised students to go home. There on campus were protests about Israel. Displayed on placards were the images of two men who the state will say are known terrorists. Powerful and intended to have an effect.
These two events contradict one another. One was clearly confrontational which is confirmed by what was recorded. The other, the opposite. I maintain there are no winners in either situation but only one was provocative. I balance this out with the general comment that protest is intended to be provocative more often than not. I am not taking sides here.
So, returning to my original thinking, what is the alternative to only words? There has to be a way where images are created not through words only but sit alongside an actual painting, photograph or sculpture. After all, it has been done the other way around with ekphrastic.
Years ago I was dissuaded, my own fault, of using images alongside poems that I was creating. I will consider returning to that premise knowing that words can be everlasting and can be supplemented by art, and essentially the other way round.