I keep having them.
I keep talking myself around in circles. First I think "hey that's a good idea you have there," and then I think "this is stupid."
Travis pointed out to me that the reason I haven't heard of any new poets is because they haven't had a chance to be "canonized" (if you don't know what that means, it isn't as fun sounding as you think :p) yet. Which by this I guess he means that we (we?) haven't decided if we like them or not. Some poets that are in the canon now didn't get there in their own lifetime, or even their grandchildrens lifetime.
But then I think of all the other creative media outlets there are today that were not there 20 years ago.
And one more thing....when I find the article I'll post it (if I remember to look)...it talks about how todays culture is entirely un-original. Everything seems to be a throwback to a past generation. This isn't an entirely new phenomenon - I know in Canada in the 50's the tourism boards were swamped with requests for plaques for historic sites and funding for museums. People were drawn into the idea that there was a "Golden Age."
I think that's what is happening now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Arguing with myself, I've found, is an excellent way to encourage multiple lines of thought simultaneously. It's perfect for the beginning of a project, and hell in the middle and end.
As for the culture being unoriginal, I'd disagree with that, possibly over simple semantics. The vast majority of poets today are borrowing not from previous culture, but from previous counterculture, previously taboo. We're part of the first few generations where it's acceptable to extend a counterculture, and so we're in the midst of some growing pains.
"Borrowing" from previous cultures is a time-honored tradition utilized by even some of the greatest poets and authors. Tennyson's poetry was full of allusions and parallels to the works of predecessors such as Ovid or Virgil. James Joyce wrote a fantastic novel whose plot revolves around recreating the storyline of the Odyssey in the Dublin of his lifetime.
The problem, as I see it, isn't so much with "borrowing" from previous culture (and counterculture, as Ian pointed out), but rather how one utilizes it. There's no good reason not to echo and allude to the depths of the literary canon, to emulate it's style or even its plot. The question to keep in mind is, how does one use this rich resource? If one retells the Odyssey, as Joyce does, it's a wonderful idea so long as they're using the work to raise new questions, explore new issues confronting their society, challenge some of the themes raised in the older works, or so on, then it's not problematic at all.
If one is merely regurgitating and emulating older, canonized poetry in the hopes that it will somehow "sound better" without using it to a novel purpose, then that, in my opinion, is where trouble and the idea of a decline can come into play.
-C.W.
Well you guys are absolutely right when it comes to poetry. Actually, one of the best poems I have wrote alludes to another poet.
But that wasn't what I was talking about (P.S.A. you'll notice often that I'll start talking about one thing and skip to another with no transition...it will confuse you, sorry :p).
I was talking about society in general, such as fashion or music. I really need to find that article.
I guess I can't help thinking back to the sixties (Tom Brokaw has a book about this that I have only glanced at.) It was a revolution, and then I can't help thinking about the Beat poets. We don't have that atmosphere today when we really should. There's no fight left.
I was actually talking to someone at work today about something similar.
We were complaining that the two new (very young) attorneys at our firm constantly misspell words and leave out punctuation when they enter their billable hours into our billing software. It gets irritating, and sad, because you'd think someone who can pass the bar would know how to spell simple words like "probably" and would know to end sentences with a period and capitalize the first letter of the first word, et cetera.
We concluded that, because the main forms of communication used by kids and young adults right now are email/Internet and text messages. Because of this, more and more kids are coming out of school thinking it's acceptable to leave vowels out of words and not bother with punctuation or capitalization. There is a time for that sort of thing, and that time is not work.
It seems to me that this has a lot to do with the sharp decline in creative expression you noted. It makes me sad to say this... but I really think literacy as we define it is pretty much over.
--Lii
Literacy better not be over! Lii, this is something that drives me crazy! I see it as simple laziness.
I feel it is my job in life to teach my children that it doesn't matter what shortcuts others take, they are expected to do more. If we start expecting less out of people, that's exactly what we'll get.
As for our culture being unoriginal, I think I'll disagree with that. That may be pure optimism, but I think there are new things happening today, new ideas being formed. I'd hate to think that we rely on only the past for our thoughts of today. But I am the eternal optimist!
Vallen
"I was talking about society in general, such as fashion or music. I really need to find that article."
Well I don't know anything at all about fashion, I can definitely say you're wrong about music. There are plenty of ways in which music has changed and evolved and is being used, as it was back in the '60s since that was your reference, as a socio-political forum.
One example, although I'm not a fan of it, is rap. Rap really didn't get started in a major capacity until the early '90s and has only become immensely popular today. You can see aspects of several cultures in rap lyrics, from the "ganster" culture, to more common African American cultures, to political radicalism (see Public Enemy), and so on.
Rock has changed too. You're seeing less and less of bands along the "ass and grass" lines of something like Aerosmith or Van Halen, and more social critiques built into music along the lines of Neil Young. Nirvana and Pearl Jam brought the grunge movement which was a lashing out against the corporate world and the growing power of various industries that comes with globalization. A very recent hard rock trio from Brooklyn called ZO2, to use another example, take sound that's best described as a fusion of Aerosmith and STP with Pearl Jam-like themes and uses it to great effect, such as in the song "Isolate" which offers a charged criticism of the Bush administration.
Honesty, this claim that "originality is dead" has been made by some many cultures over so many years, and it's never true and likely never will be.
-C.W.
I don't know if you've listened to much rap in the past year, but so much of it is sampled from other songs, and often the artist isn't even singing all the much on the album.
You said:
"You're seeing less and less of bands along the "ass and grass" lines of something like Aerosmith or Van Halen" Again I disagree. The past year, many of the songs I hear are a throw back to bands you just listed.
Maybe emo is our new culture. How does *that* make you feel! :p
I don't listen to much rap PERIOD. But I do remember seieng some rapper (don't ask the name because I don't know) recently on The Colbert Reports whose music was back in those political roots.
And in that case I don't know what bands you're listening too. I can give you plenty of bands that are new sounds (and not emo) and are not just throwbacks...there's ZO2 who I already mentioned, SilverSpade, Shadows Fall, Atavus, some of Atreyu's stuff, Jeremiah Freed. There's lots of good rock that's innovative, and it really isn't hard to find.
-C.W.
Rap is constantly evolving.
A lot of it has evolved into crap, but a lot of it has gotten better and broken off from the run-of-the-mill "I like to drink and smoke and slap bitches" rap that is cited by teachers and parents as the reason no one should be allowed to listen to rap at all.
It's important to remember that nothing is ever absolute.
Post a Comment