| Learning, not Liking Last entry I promised some discussion of why I read poets I don’t care for. To me, this answer is twofold and obvious: to stretch my appreciation for the craft of poetry, and to expand my own horizons beyond that which I know and do. I’m frankly stunned that so many artists think differently than this. A live example: Writer & blogger Joshua Corey has been reading Ezra Pound’s Cantos and writing generally positive things about the work. I hated the Cantos in college. I found the poems complicated for complications’ sake, worldly without being open-minded, and generally more difficult than readable. But I could recognize Pound’s craft, I took some interest in the visual play of the later Cantos on the page, and I respect the effort and the breadth of reference in the collective work; I just don’t enjoy reading it. It’s more than accessibility: Pound wound from the didactic to the undecipherable with too many twists on too few ideas for me. There wasn’t any payoff, to me, for the effort of following along. But the entries in Cahiers de Corey present a different perspective on these works. They are helping me understand some of what I missed when I gave up on the Cantos and they are offering me additional appreciation for the art therein. I’ve even pulled the book off my shelf again, to reread the Adams Cantos through the new filter of my advanced personal experience (read: I’m 15 years older) and recent learnings (having read up on Adams seriously in the past year). Maybe I’ll be disposed to learn something I missed the first time through. Maybe. That’s not the only poetry I don’t like that’s currently on my “Do List”. The Best American Poetry 2004 will be out at the end of Summer, so I’ll be pulling the 2003 edition down for another read before then. I revisit these books often – when the poets in them have new work out or I’m researching the represented magazines for possible submission, etc. I always dislike at least 10 of the 75 poems in the book, but I return to them because in the opinion of people I respect as artists, these are (among) the best poems around, which means there must be something I can learn from them – even if I choose not to apply it in my own work. That’s the thing: We become better artists by learning more tools of the art, even if we elect not to use them, because we have a broader knowledge of what is possible. With that broader knowledge, we can – even without realizing it – get more out of the tools we do use. It’s like a jazz pianist listing to Chopin in the afternoon and then laying down a riff with the remnants of a phrase from that master. Most people have something interesting to say and if they’re willing take the time to craft it (more some other time about people who think streaming consciousness necessarily yields quality writings), I am willing to take the time to read it. Don’t make me commit to liking it beforehand, and I promise not to mislead you about it after. |