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A bit about a poet who should know better;
But has found a way to twist words and letter.
“Can Poetry Matter” is the question he ask,
Then changes the subject of the task.
So here is a piece for your consideration,
From a critic’s, critic’s, critic’s imagination.
Critics’ Critic’s Critic
Along comes Dana Gioia, poet
Making a lot of noise about what?
Claiming the halls of learning
Are new poets spurning.
Yet as a critic’s critic
He exposes not a few self-same tics.
A psychologist would be amused
To see a writer so confused.
Words and fashion, he chastises
But offers nothing to enhance or mesmerize.
Cites poetry of the recent dead
And those writings you should dread.
It’s free verse that he champions
Even tho he puts the damper on
Those who seek this way of expression
Writing in this fashion.
Gioia misses the point entirely
Most poets are simply lazy.
They could write meter and rhyme,
If they just took the time.
So he laments the state of the art,
While becoming a part of those who depart.
“Can Poetry Matter?” He ask,
Then shrouds himself in grandiloquent mass.
Yes Poetry can matter if you choose
To follow certain well established rules.
But just to make the lines come out even
Is hardly enough for rhyme or reason.
For some, the intent is to shock
Others, reader’s intelligence mock.
Some, with a thesaurus do write
Words chosen, quite contrite.
Forgetting, that the message
Is to convey - on the written page,
Excitement, much as the spoken word
Is for the reader, or listener heard.
So Gioia writes pages of prose
Chastising those that suppose
Their “poetry,” is for all intent
The art-form of the establishment.
Reference to the work, Can Poetry Matter?, Dana Gioia, Greywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1992.
sjm
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