[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks for these contributions, Lance and Andrew. In thinking about these examples, I'm struck by this: The tragedy observed up close, in the depth of mourning, gives us a very different poem from the tragedy observed after many years and placed in a long social context. It's probably much more difficult to do a good job with the first sort.

A few of those first-sort poems, though, have managed to make their places in the canon. I know there are people who find Whitman OTT, but I continue to admire the opening sections of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". The early segments are most often anthologized. I could use more study of the later parts.

[Jean L. Kreiling]

What about the charge that a poet exploits someone else's tragedy with such a poem, particularly when that tragedy is very recent, or even still unfolding? Yes, of course, the quality and tone of the poem would enter into that question, but can even an eloquent, tasteful, and compelling poem be accused of explotation, insensitivity, etc.? I confess that I ask because I find myself working very hard on a poem about a local event that must be haunting an awful lot of folks around here. When I'm haunted, I write--but maybe this poem should be restricted to my hard drive until considerable time has passed . . .

Best,
Jean

P.S. (Editing in) I realize now that this question may not belong in the "Musing on Mastery" area . . . please feel free to ignore, and if you do, maybe I'll ask this question on a "General Conversation" thread sometime . . .

[Maryann Corbett]

Jean, I think it's a great question and an apt subject for General Talk. I've certainly pondered it.

To try to say something that's pertinent to the poems above: I think a great deal depends on the size of the group of "interested parties" as well as on the amount of time that has passed. When many years have gone by, an event belongs to history and so to everybody. I think we probably read "The Convergence of the Twain" and "Shiloh" in that light, even though it's possible that those poems' contemporaries might not have. For contemporary events, if news is national or global, perhaps in a sense everyone owns it. The items that appear in "New Verse News" might provide us with examples.

Local events are the posers: People we actually know will feel real ownership of those events. For any poem derived from that sort of event, the keenest audience will be the one most likely to contain people who disagree with the poet's reading of events. (It's a little like trying to write about our own domestic lives. There's always a family member who reads the poem and says, "But THAT'S not how it happened!") Waiting seems wise. Generalizing and fictionalizing seem like possibilities as well.

I'm sure others have something to say about this.

[Tim Murphy]

I am glad Lance posted Tate's Ode to the Confederate Dead. I don't think Lowell's poem has a patch on it. I can't write "public poetry." God knows I try, but I always screw up. The War Between the States was the greatest calamity in the history of this nation, a whole generation of young men on both sides reduced to cannon fodder, including many young men from my family, all fighting for the Union side. I'm very much prejudiced in favor of this poem. My parents studied with Tate at the University of Minnesota, and the first time I encountered it, Tate's student, Robert Penn Warren, recited it to me from memory in his Citroen.

[John Riley]

It isn't a tragedy poem but Yeats' "To A Wealthy Man Who Promised A Second Subscription To The Dublin Municipal Gallery If It Were Proved The People Wanted Pictures" has always be a favorite, especially the first sentence.


You gave but will not give again
Until enough of Paudeen’s pence
By Biddy’s halfpennies have lain
To be ‘some sort of evidence,’
Before you’ll put your guineas down,
That things it were a pride to give
Are what the blind and ignorant town
Imagines best to make it thrive.

[Wintaka]

Love this topic! Of the Civil War "Dead" poems I, personally, much prefer Tate's. I agree with Rick Mullin about 9/11 poems in general, my choice of which won't surprise anyone.

IMHO, no discussion of public tragedy poems should end without mentioning the greatest poem of the 20th Century. It's the only poem I can think of that transcends language.

-o-

[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks so much for introducing me to the Lorca, Colin. Wanting to learn about new poems, and to be reminded of old ones, is my main reason for starting threads like these.

It occurs to me that in recent years a public tragedy is more likely to be mourned in popular music than in poetry per se. We've argued many times about whether this or that song lyric rises to the level of poetry, so I don't know whether the thread should open up to include songs. But the example that occurs to me is "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

Are the songs poetry too? We could see where this goes....

[Wintaka]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

Thanks so much for introducing me to the Lorca, Colin.

You're welcome, Maryann. Even if I didn't speak a word of Spanish I would think of "Llanto" as the onomatopoeia of sorrow.

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

It occurs to me that in recent years a public tragedy is more likely to be mourned in popular music than in poetry per se.

Sadly, that may be true of everything--romance, drama, tragedy, humour--since the 1920s.

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

We've argued many times about whether this or that song lyric rises to the level of poetry, so I don't know whether the thread should open up to include songs. But the example that occurs to me is "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

Makes a person wonder: "What's with those Canadians and their amphibrachs?"

Best regards,

Colin