[Mary McLean]

Originally Posted by R. Nemo Hill

Poetry that has no trace of incomprehensibility (no areas of darkness) doesn't interest me in the slightest. I would call poetry that is utterly comprehensible not light verse, but thin verse.

I'm guessing you're not a light poet. But seriously, I think we are defining comprehensibility differently. Nothing stops a comprehensible poem from being dark and complex, as Roger expressed so eloquently.

Quincy, I'm not attacking academics, I'm just saying they have a better chance than the general public at untangling the meaning of a wilfully-obscure poem. And the sad truth is that almost no one reads poetry nowadays because of the mistaken perception that all of it is wilfully obscure. I didn't read it myself until I started writing it last autumn. (Except for Susan's of course, but I knew she was different).

The essay linked to by Frank is a great education about how these ideas of light verse have evolved. The view I expressed, cribbed from Steven Fry, was cribbed from Auden (as he acknowledged). I like the idea of civil vs vatic verse as another way to think of it.

I sympathize with the people asking why it matters what light verse is. It matters to me because I've written a bunch of poems which seem to me to be too dark for the light verse journals but too light for the mainstream journals. Any suggestions what I should do with them? (No obscenity, please).

[Rick Mullin]

I agree that Mary is not attacking academics. On the contrary....
~,:^)

Quincy, by the way, speaks of anti-intellectualism, from what I have read. That is quite different from anti-academicism.

[Roger Slater]

We don't have just two choices, comprehensibility and obscurity. I suspect that those arguing against comprehensibility would not be quick to defend much of Jorie Graham or John Ashbery or the "language" poets, proving, if I'm right, that we share common ground in desiring some level of comprehensibility even if we differ as to how much.

Here's a poem by an often incomprehensible poet, James Tate, that I think is both an example of the sort of comprehensible incomprehensibility one might strive for as well, perhaps, as a great metaphor for the light/heavy verse discussion we've been having. It's long been a favorite of mine:


MY FELISBERTO

My felisberto is handsomer than your mergotroid,
although, admittedly, your mergotroid may be the wiser of the two.
Whereas your mergotroid never winces or quails,
my felisberto is a titan of inconsistencies.
For a night of wit and danger and temptation
my felisberto would be the obvious choice.
However, at dawn or dusk when serenity is desired
your mergotroid cannot be ignored.
Merely to sit near it in the garden
and watch the fabrications of the world swirl by,
the deep-sea's bathymetry wash your eyes,
not to mention the little fawns of the forest
and their flip-floppy gymnastics, ah, for this
and so much more your mergotroid is infinitely preferable.
But there is a place for darkness and obscurity
without which life can sometimes seem too much,
too frivolous and too profound simultaneously,
and that is when my felisberto is needed,
is longed for and loved, and then the sun can rise again.
The bee and the hummingbird drink of the world,
and your mergotroid elaborates the silent concert
that is always and always about to begin.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Thank you, Frank, for posting that link to the book about Gavin Ewart. I think the introduction establishes that trying to define light verse is a worthwhile exercise, but one that is unlikely to produce entirely satisfactory results.

For me the "civil" vs. "vatic" business makes a useful distinction between types of poetry and between ways of thinking about a "poetic vocation" (if that term is not too grandiose and vatic). But it's of limited value in understanding what makes verse "light," because it seems to leave the funny out of the equation. A poem can be innocent of the bardic, prophetic ambitions of a "Paradise Lost," a "Song of Myself," or a "Howl," yet still not be anything that most of us would recognize as light verse or comic verse.

And if just talking in ordinary language to ordinary people is not a sufficient condition for light verse, it seems to me that it's not a necessary condition either. Think of the double dactyl, for example. That's obviously a light verse form, but its vocabulary goes way beyond the everyday, and it often trades in literary and historical references that range beyond the cultural literacy of the average tabloid reader. The songs of W.S. Gilbert and Tom Lehrer are every bit as erudite as the poems of Richard Wilbur. And many people who post here write poems that are both funny and, as we say in Boston, wicked smaht.

There's an inescapable element of absurdity in the human condition, and that's what light verse deals with. Since our absurdity overlaps with our grandeur, with our vulnerability, with our saintliest virtues, and with our most demonic vices, light verse can deal with all the same Big Issues that feature in serious poetry. Communing with nature is spiritually uplifting, and sometimes birds shit on our heads. Sex is the ultimate religious experience, and it involves assuming ridiculous positions and making goofy noises -- to say nothing of all the bizarre emotional negotiations and social conventions to which our sexuality gives rise. All of our sins and follies, from the pettiest dishonesties to the most monumental crimes against humanity are material for the preacher and also for the the satirist. Our mortality is "Funeral Blues" and "To an Athlete Dying Young" sad, and it's also "Cremation of Sam McGee" hilarious.

Of course, all of that doesn't really add up to a definition of light verse. Maybe it even gives aid and comfort to the there-really-is-no-such-thing-as-light-verse argument. OK.

[John Whitworth]

Quincy, that stuff about smoking jackets is utter balls, isn't it? What the hell IS a smoking jacket? Whatever it is I bet Ogden Nash didn't have one

[Rick Mullin]

John, I'm pretty sure there is such thing as metaphor.~,:^)

[Orwn Acra]

I own an almost literal smoking jacket with a man's face on the lapel and a cigarette-looking breast pocket. The model is wearing a version.

[Mary McLean]

I really don't think I am anti-intellectual. I sometimes enjoy quite abstruse poetry, I just regret the extent to which it seems to dominate the mainstream. But I would not class as abstruse the vast majority of the poetry posted here, so I suspect we are mostly arguing at cross-purposes.

I'm not sure if there is a middle ground between comprehensibility and obscurity, but there certainly is one between inaccessibility and unoriginality. I'm hoping you guys can teach me how to hit that sweet spot better.

[John Whitworth]

Rick, if I don't know what a smoking jacket is, the the metaphor will rather pass me by.

Ah, but I do now. Orwn, what we want is a photograph of the thing with you in it. And smoking presumably. Perhaps a cuban cigar.

[Vernon Sims]

sorry posted rtwice. my bad