The Good, the Bad, and My Latest Poem

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Chris Lott has some insightful points about the cult of the new in poetry, and uses this great analogy: “What is it with this cult of the new? In my job, working with technology and education, I have a fundamental rule, a prime directive that states: thou shalt not put the technology first. There may be many ways to do many things, and they may have intrinsic attraction, but in the end the technological tools only exist in this context as means to an end.”

Myself, I think it’s the old frontier mentality. Americans require new lands whether they be physical or intellectual. Even the traditional is renamed: “New Formalism.” But it's not the new that's needed. It's the news. Or as William Carlos Williams wrote: "It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there."

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On the other hand, how unfair is it of Jonathan Mayhew to critique a poem in the following manner, “There is no convincing imagery, no logopeia or interest in language, no intelligence of the everyday sort, no emotional weight. There is no style.” yet leave out the last six lines. He never indicates that the poem he refers to is a sonnet, nor fesses up to the fact that he’s only quoting the first 8 lines. Now I’m not a real fan of this particular poet but she is telling a story in this poem that requires the commonplace to highlight the uncommon world of the psychic. Only then will the real magic at the end of the poem kick in. But you wouldn’t be able to see that through Jonathan’s trick. Here’s the last 6 lines:

Hand me a scarf the victim wore around
Her neck - or else her glasses, or a ring.
I’ll see a place: and there the body’s found.
Finding the killer? That’s a different thing.
Bodies are easy; their passivity
Gives them away. Guilt is too quick for me.

There's more intelligence, weight, and style in that last line than in all of Jonathan's screed. The whole poem can be read here.

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And lastly, I was inspired by all this poetic theory to put my verses where my mouth is. Here’s a poem I wrote tonight. It’s a first draft but I think it’s moving in the right direction.


Kennebunkport Dreaming

On Walker Point, the Bush’s summer home
is quite palatial. Passersby will stop
their Civics, Focuses, or Golfs and roam
along the ocean path. Their jaws will drop
confronted with that democratic need
to find the right location. There she blows!
Americans can love the pedigreed,
who hold a point of view that must oppose
their own self-interest, if allowed to dream
that someday they may have their Walker Point,
Hyannisport, or at the least, a scheme
to mine enough resources to anoint
their children with that oil of destiny.
Meanwhile they thrill to view the holy sea.

copyright Gregory Perry 2004