The Poet in the World
Not being much for labels, I’ve never thought about exactly what kind of poetry I write. We all throw around terms like free verse, narrative, lyric, sticchic, strophic, among others, but for all practical purposes those terms are relative to the people you’re having a conversation with and not much else. Denise Levertov’s book, The Poet in the World, gave me pause and caused me to reflect on the work I’m actually doing. According to her, the type of poems I write could only be called “organic” because free verse implies no structure or association.
The best way I can describe what I think she’s talking about is through jazz. In the late 1940’s and through the decade of the 1950’s, musicians like Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, and John Coltrane played a type of jazz referred to as “bebop.” What that meant, in simple terms, was taking a standard song with a definite melody and improvising “riffs” off of the melody, returning to it at their leisure and riffing again as the spirit moved them. This was organic jazz.
In the 1960’s, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Mingus, and others began experimenting with “free” jazz. This consisted of complete improvisation, no melody, form, or structure, just a series of grunts, groans, wails, and random moans. I could very easily liken this to what true free verse poetry should be in Levertov’s opinion. And, it is not what most of us write. I guess I’m a bebop poet. I write with a specific narrative in mind. I riff off of that narrative, but return to it. The structure and form changes with each poem based on content, but structure and form do exist.
Levertov’s essays throughout the book had me speculating like this on many different subjects. That makes me believe the book was well worth reading. I call it a book of essays, but that may be too rigid of a classification. It’s really a collection of speeches, journal notes, lectures and random thoughts. Each section, however, is valuable in understanding Levertov and her poetics. For example, in one entry she bemoans the state of poetry in the late 20th century. She says:
The best poems of recent years that are about chaos… including “Howl”
are intricately structured, not chaotic. The force is there, the horror, but only precisely because these are works of art, not self-indulgent spittle drippings. They have the “inner harmony” that is a contrast to the confusion around them.
This idea is of particular interest to me because I have argued with high school English teachers for years that teaching students to write poetry as a form of expression is a cop- out. Poetry is a form of expression, but it’s also much more than that. Good poems are works of art and, like any work of art, subject to standards. They are not spittle drippings of teenaged angst.
According to Levertov, poets don’t look for answers. They seek to clarify the existence and nature of questions. The way they do this is through dialogue with their inner selves. If I believe Levertov, and I do, then the task of the poet is to strive for a universality of subject or theme within the poem, a way to reach others by reaching himself. The circumstance that generates the poem becomes far less important than the communion between author and reader regarding the questions the circumstance raises.
I could probably continue this discourse with myself for several more pages. This book certainly gives rise to reflection as to why I write, and particularly, why I write poetry. However, for the sake of brevity, I’m going to stop hitting the keyboard with the thought that Denise Levertov was right on target in this book with her main connecting theme that good poetry translates experience rather than invents it.
The best way I can describe what I think she’s talking about is through jazz. In the late 1940’s and through the decade of the 1950’s, musicians like Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, and John Coltrane played a type of jazz referred to as “bebop.” What that meant, in simple terms, was taking a standard song with a definite melody and improvising “riffs” off of the melody, returning to it at their leisure and riffing again as the spirit moved them. This was organic jazz.
In the 1960’s, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Mingus, and others began experimenting with “free” jazz. This consisted of complete improvisation, no melody, form, or structure, just a series of grunts, groans, wails, and random moans. I could very easily liken this to what true free verse poetry should be in Levertov’s opinion. And, it is not what most of us write. I guess I’m a bebop poet. I write with a specific narrative in mind. I riff off of that narrative, but return to it. The structure and form changes with each poem based on content, but structure and form do exist.
Levertov’s essays throughout the book had me speculating like this on many different subjects. That makes me believe the book was well worth reading. I call it a book of essays, but that may be too rigid of a classification. It’s really a collection of speeches, journal notes, lectures and random thoughts. Each section, however, is valuable in understanding Levertov and her poetics. For example, in one entry she bemoans the state of poetry in the late 20th century. She says:
The best poems of recent years that are about chaos… including “Howl”
are intricately structured, not chaotic. The force is there, the horror, but only precisely because these are works of art, not self-indulgent spittle drippings. They have the “inner harmony” that is a contrast to the confusion around them.
This idea is of particular interest to me because I have argued with high school English teachers for years that teaching students to write poetry as a form of expression is a cop- out. Poetry is a form of expression, but it’s also much more than that. Good poems are works of art and, like any work of art, subject to standards. They are not spittle drippings of teenaged angst.
According to Levertov, poets don’t look for answers. They seek to clarify the existence and nature of questions. The way they do this is through dialogue with their inner selves. If I believe Levertov, and I do, then the task of the poet is to strive for a universality of subject or theme within the poem, a way to reach others by reaching himself. The circumstance that generates the poem becomes far less important than the communion between author and reader regarding the questions the circumstance raises.
I could probably continue this discourse with myself for several more pages. This book certainly gives rise to reflection as to why I write, and particularly, why I write poetry. However, for the sake of brevity, I’m going to stop hitting the keyboard with the thought that Denise Levertov was right on target in this book with her main connecting theme that good poetry translates experience rather than invents it.
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