TextSpace

What a pleasure to see the flurry of posting even in the last leg of the marathon, and congratulations to W.H. for inspiring it. There's a few minutes until class and no one at my door, so I'll jot a few thoughts....

Is Auden serious or humorously provocative in throwing stones at would-be writers? Probably both ... to put in elitest context, he probably would also say that there are only 10 or 15 living poets of talent writing in the English language today. In that light, the fact that hundreds or thousands are employed in Creative Writing Programs, where thousands of students pay serious money to become writers, publish in a 1000 or more literary journals suggests to me he'd find the situation unchanged.

I took the more scathing point to be his observation of how little else in contemporary life has the potential to be fulfilling, as he contrasts craft from assembly-line work. The notion is that the "idea" of writing now has to serve the psychic/emotional needs that might have been met by many many ways of life "once upon a time."

It has the element of a fable to it, sure. But at a poetry slam, I sometimes ponder what doing writing or being a writer means to the participants. Few can reasonable hope, do aspire, or perhaps would even consider it goal worthy to approach the model of Auden. Some are not interested in reading other's poetry, perfecting "their art," not concerned with making something timeless or any of the other dimensions of what makes a writer a writer in Auden's eyes. And it's not primarily the space for social resistance of the powerless -- though slams do have a bit of the agonistic quality and social consciousness Cronyn sees in South Africa. For most, there seems a pleasure in the play and the authentic making of "my" poem. The pride and pleasure in an individual act.

Here for me Adorno comes in, as he suggests not the poet but a poem or poetry takes its value from its partial (and very complicated) distancing from the dominant value system in society. A poet whom we have not read but whom Bernstein quotes, Steve McCaffery, celebrates the power of poetry as representing a "wasteful" econmony ... where one devotes amazing energy into the creation or reception of a "product" that won't sell. There's an analogy with the gift-giving ritual of potlatch where a family gives away all its possessions, with no guarantee but an expectation of receiving reciprocation in the future.

Much more to Adorno....Looking for a good overview, I stumbled upon this course site for American Poetry of the Left, which proposes a tradition of socially engaged writing in the US.

How do any of these three impact our reading, teaching, studying? What would we do if we were to take them seriously and find them persuasive.