Quote:
Originally Posted by E. Shaun Russell
You know why people like KG piss me off? It's because when they put their stuff across as "poetry", and get attention for doing so, the general public starts to equate that dreck with poetry in general, thus causing people to think, "Well if that's what poetry is, then clearly I don't like poetry."
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Shaun, I'm not sure this is as generally true as people fear.
The people who'll see KG's statements, I think, are the people who are already actively interested in poetry and poetics and in the trends, the hot stuff, the buzz. I really doubt that there's much crossover between the Garrison Keillor and Ted Kooser poetry readers (this is not intended as a putdown, just a quick classification) and those who will stumble across KG and be put off. The fact that Keillor and Kooser and YourDailyPoem and the like can come up with such poems every day suggests to me that there's no dearth of accessible poetry.
I like accessible poetry just fine, but I get impatient with rants about the inaccessible kind, because it takes a great deal more than accessibility for me to feel satisfied with a poem. Ed's example from Wilbur says a lot about what I seem to need. There has to be wisdom. And all the symbols have to work for me the same way they work for the poet; the situations and life-elements all have to mean to me what they mean to him. I get this in Wilbur, but I know that not everyone does. There are people who feel he's too privileged, too removed, too far above the grit of their real lives. It seems to be all about the attitude one finds in the poems, and whether or not one likes a person with that attitude.
There doesn't seem to be a clear conclusion here, but I'll stop.