wellsprings of hate
I don't know if this has me all in a whirl because I'm a writer or just plain old. The other day in English Comp II, I presented along with two other girls the topic Poetry Past The Year 1980. It was actually an interesting idea, to talk about how poetry has evolved, where it has gone and what it looks like now.
I had the oldest era, of course. I talked about Charles Bukowski and how his autobiographical/confessional style really opened up poetry to everyone, breaking it from the realm of stuffy, boring work confined to certain symbols and forms. I found this awesome reading he did of a poem called The Last Days of the Suicide Kid. I also read a poem by Gary Soto, a chicano author from California who wrote about everyday life as part of the working class.
The next girl talked about how in the nineties, poetry began to merge into song lyrics more strongly than ever before, and she played two songs to prove her point. I was delighted that one of her picks happened to be a Bright Eyes song I'd never heard before.
Then, the last girl talked about Slam poetry/Spoken Word Poetry and how it broke a lot of conventions and expressed the poet's anger and criticisms of the world around us. Before we presented she expressed her concerns about saying one of the lines, something like: let's fuck some shit up.
Okay, I'll admit, it's a little rough. It was the only time the poet choose to use swear words and he choose two! And she is some skinny nervous fresh out of high school white girl who's probably from the suburbs and swears only when it's safe and that's cool with me. People are who they are and they're not what they're not.
But then...She omitted the line. Just plain skipped right over it. She fucking edited this man's poem and decided she just didn't feel comfortable saying a swear word or two in front of her class. Now, if she had told me that she wasn't going to say it, I would have read the damn poem! But she didn't mention that she might not say it. Fuck! What right does she have to omit his words? The whole poem (which was about causing revolution) hinged on that line.
fucking kids these days.
posted by stine @ 11:31 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
"I talked about Charles Bukowski and how his autobiographical/confessional style really opened up poetry to everyone, breaking it from the realm of stuffy, boring work confined to certain symbols and forms. I found this awesome reading he did of a poem called The Last Days of the Suicide Kid"
Didn't I play that for you years ago? I thought I did but I seem to remember it falling on indifferent ears. You didn't need school to teach you about poetry. As for the "stuffy, boring" poems Buk was writing in reaction to, they have their place and many are not simply stuffy and boring but awe inspiring and written from a perspective of greater depth than most of us will ever know. I might say that Buk, as much I love the guy, was not the best reader, even if he was, at times, a good writer. The best thing he did was write simple poems to inspire future lousy writers who think bluntness and confessionalism equals art. It may, if you have something interesting behind it, but I see that rarely in his imitators.
Anyway, The confessional style was really pioneered by others in the 70's, like Anne Sexton for example, and I think that one Bukowski poem predates the 80's (maybe written around 1974?). He certainly did. And the Slam thing may be a recent entity but the spoken word style that spawned it is closely linked with the lousy beatniks of the 50's. Then again, rarely is anything a pure creation of its time without owning heavy debts to previous generations.
And I would like some examples of poems merging with song lyrics because I have never agreed with that opinion. They are separate to me, and no, Bob Dylan is not a fucking poet, despite what anyone says.
now this is entertainment. peace, love & happy trails.
Okay, my thoughts on the matter, since Stine has not had a chance to respond:
Song lyrics have long been compared to poetry, most prominently since the 60’s and all those damn folk singers. Bob Dylan is always called a poet, why I am not 100% sure. Examining his lyrics, there are elements of the poetic but divorced from the music, they tend not to carry the same weight. This, in a nutshell, is my argument against lyrics being poetry. That and they tend to work better set against the sonic composition. Now, these are not hard and fast rules and the distinction is up to the individual, but to me, reading song lyrics as poetry is not agreeable. Maybe some do work but largely there seems to be a reason why these words were conceived to be sung and vice versa.
I took a creative writing class years ago and the teacher asked everyone to bring in some song lyrics we thought might make a good poem. Everything from Jane’s Addiction to Jethro Tull made it into the class (I brought Genesis’ “Broadway Melody of 1974”). The end result, for me, was to see the contrasting differences in Robert Plant and Lord Byron.
Anyway, that being said, the issue is that we will forever be lectured on the similarities and differences between the two forms of expression, and like I said, it is largely a matter of taste, but I have not heard a compelling argument for lyrics as poetry. Think of the lousy readings where you hear young folks singing their poems; personally, they make my skin crawl.
Let's see. I seem to remember nothing very well, but that I did read a few Buk books and a few poems here and there. If you want to hear the reading, it's at Salon.com, or google Charles Bukowski mp3's. I agree that a lot of his readings are muddied up by not just his being drunk, but also by a noisy crowd or bad recording in general.
The recording of "The Last Days of the Suicide Kid" was done in 1993 and Buk did pretty well at it. At least I thought so. I played it for my class because there are a lot of men in my class and I thought they might be able to identify with him.
And you know, you taught me more about books and words than anyone ever has. Thanks.
The lyrics chosen by this girl in my class were: a Bright Eyes song and a Digable Planets song. I actually don't know the song titles but I will find out, if you like.
I think it's interesting too that people are always trying to cross reference art forms that are perhaps cousins, but not identical twins. I guess it is just a function of trying to make sense of something. Sometimes comparison and contrast things makes some characteristics more apparent.
Oh those lousy readings!
1993, are you sure? He was either dead or soon to be dead by then.
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