12.14.2005
Sound and fury, round 2
The spat between Garrison Keillor and poet August Kleinzhaler over the notion of "good poems" resumed last month, and I'm finally getting around to writing about it. The spat really isn't between Keillor and Kleinzhaler; the latter ripped to shreds the compilation of the former, and with the release recently of a follow-up (that would be Good Poems for Hard Times, a sequel to Keillor's previous Good Poems), the New York Times' David Carr has weighed in on the issue.
Quickly, Kleinzhaler and Dana Gioia (National Endowment for the Arts Chairman and a poet himself) wrote pro and con reviews of Good Poems in the April 2004 issue of Poetry magazine. It's part of a larger debate going on, it seems to me, about the merits of experimental fiction vs. realist fiction (for lack of better terms), where each side seems to see no middle ground (more on this in a moment).
Reading the Times article, as well as the many other pieces out there about the dust up, I'm struck by one new thing (I say new, because I wrote about this several months ago myself in a post about my own jagged path into the world of poetry): Why doesn't Kleinzhaler put his money where is mouth is and assemble his own anthology? He is quick to criticize Keillor for making "no demands on his audiences, none whatsoever," and says "I, for one, have never in my lifetime seen the situation of poetry in this country more dire and desperate... what little of real originality is drowning in the waste products spewing from graduate writing programs..." He obviously has strong opinions about what constitutes bad poetry; one hopes he also knows what makes good poetry and can gather several examples. He clearly has a soapbox, and he is a respected poet with a major publishing house behind him. What better person to edit an anthology of truly "good poems?"
It's easy to criticize Keillor's efforts; it's harder to do something constructive about it. I for one would love to read an anthology of poetry that picks the best of the challenging yet accessible work that is out there. Kleinzhaler's own best poems are strong candidates for such a work. Given the choice between the haughty, impenetrable vastness of the poetry world or Keillor's warm, fuzzy roadmap through some light, easy verse, which way does Kleinzhaler think people are going to jump? Telling them they're stupid for reading such trifle isn't exactly your best pitch.
Which brings me back to the experimental vs. realistic debate. Why can't people find a middle ground? I've argued before that anything that gets people to read is a good thing. If a light Billy Collins poem gets people to check out his Poetry 180 collection, for example, where they get a mix of Joe Wenderoth's absurdity and Donald Justice's quiet elegance, maybe they'll branch out and continue to explore and discover the work of others. If they read a mystery novel by Dennis Lehane and find in an interview that he mentions Martin Amis and Don DeLillo as among his favorite authors, might they not check them out and discover something beyond mass market paperbacks?
They just might, and the effort would be helped if all of those who waste so much energy decrying the low-brow would instead focus on ways to ease people into the middle brow and beyond. So here's a challenge for Kleinzhaler: put up or shut up.
Quickly, Kleinzhaler and Dana Gioia (National Endowment for the Arts Chairman and a poet himself) wrote pro and con reviews of Good Poems in the April 2004 issue of Poetry magazine. It's part of a larger debate going on, it seems to me, about the merits of experimental fiction vs. realist fiction (for lack of better terms), where each side seems to see no middle ground (more on this in a moment).
Reading the Times article, as well as the many other pieces out there about the dust up, I'm struck by one new thing (I say new, because I wrote about this several months ago myself in a post about my own jagged path into the world of poetry): Why doesn't Kleinzhaler put his money where is mouth is and assemble his own anthology? He is quick to criticize Keillor for making "no demands on his audiences, none whatsoever," and says "I, for one, have never in my lifetime seen the situation of poetry in this country more dire and desperate... what little of real originality is drowning in the waste products spewing from graduate writing programs..." He obviously has strong opinions about what constitutes bad poetry; one hopes he also knows what makes good poetry and can gather several examples. He clearly has a soapbox, and he is a respected poet with a major publishing house behind him. What better person to edit an anthology of truly "good poems?"
It's easy to criticize Keillor's efforts; it's harder to do something constructive about it. I for one would love to read an anthology of poetry that picks the best of the challenging yet accessible work that is out there. Kleinzhaler's own best poems are strong candidates for such a work. Given the choice between the haughty, impenetrable vastness of the poetry world or Keillor's warm, fuzzy roadmap through some light, easy verse, which way does Kleinzhaler think people are going to jump? Telling them they're stupid for reading such trifle isn't exactly your best pitch.
Which brings me back to the experimental vs. realistic debate. Why can't people find a middle ground? I've argued before that anything that gets people to read is a good thing. If a light Billy Collins poem gets people to check out his Poetry 180 collection, for example, where they get a mix of Joe Wenderoth's absurdity and Donald Justice's quiet elegance, maybe they'll branch out and continue to explore and discover the work of others. If they read a mystery novel by Dennis Lehane and find in an interview that he mentions Martin Amis and Don DeLillo as among his favorite authors, might they not check them out and discover something beyond mass market paperbacks?
They just might, and the effort would be helped if all of those who waste so much energy decrying the low-brow would instead focus on ways to ease people into the middle brow and beyond. So here's a challenge for Kleinzhaler: put up or shut up.
