When a determination to navigate one another with the greatest care becomes the uppermost concern, art suffers. An overweening self-consciousness is bound to set in. Do our unruffled feathers really have primacy over the words themselves? There is nothing wrong with establishing a social confab where poetry serves merely to facilitate easy dialogue. But it might necessitate a tweak of the guidelines so that the current confusion can be avoided in the future. If words are not sticks and stones with the power to hurt then frankly they have no power. They are pabulum.
Poets must be steel magnolias, not wilting flowers. Let those unwilling to risk offense take up baking or busy themselves more with quiz-taking on Facebook.
|