The Schalter

Written by: Martin Di Paola

“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” - Robert Frost

“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” - T.S. Eliot

“…the best words in the best order” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poetry is perhaps both historically the most lauded and presently the most ignored of the great art forms. It is unclear what its role is in the modern world. Drama develops to respond to and reflect contemporary issues and prose fiction remains vibrant and commercially successful despite the emergence of all of our more technologically advanced forms of entertainment. Poetry, conversely, seems stranded. A literary dinosaur that holds little relevance in the modern world. People with an interest in literature will know all of the big names: Keats, Wordsworth, Yeats, Coleridge. All of the heavy hitters. What becomes more difficult is when you try to look for something more modern. You see, poetry doesn’t sell. The old stuff does, to students of literature, academics and to a few odd people like myself but the list of potential buyers largely stops here and even this market doesn’t often extend to modern original work.

I have a confession to make, I’m a literary snob. I’m bad at reading modern prose, when I go to the theatre it’s generally to see some established classic and my poetry reading is widespread but I have very little knowledge of what’s current, preferring instead to stick to what I know and love. I’m a literary coward but I tend to feel that there’s so much classic literature that I haven’t read that I should get all of that done first before moving on to modern and potentially inferior things.

And there is some wonderful writing to find. One of the fantastic things about poetry is the length. Poems are a short, concentrated conveyance of ideas that can run the full gamut of human emotion. Practically, their length allows for a literary experience in a short time; they are a snack of words but far more satisfying. Another fantastic thing about poetry is that due to its age much of it is in the public domain, making online collections a fantastic way of reading old favourites and discovering something new and exciting. A particular favourite site of mine is Plagiarist.com. It has a huge database and a friendly random poem button that often turns up some real gems. A good example is this one from Nizar Qabbani, Syrian diplomat and poet.

My Lover Asks Me

My lover asks me:
“What is the difference between me and the sky?”
The difference, my love,
Is that when you laugh,
I forget about the sky.

Simple, utterly evocative and beautiful. There wasn’t a lot of Syrian poetry taught as part of my English literature course at the University of Glasgow so I owe my finding of this poet to this site and a few others. I can honestly say I feel that my life has been enhanced by having read this and others by this wonderful writer. The list of slightly obscure poets or poems that I have discovered though looking online is a long one and I would fully recommend passing an hour so this way to both lovers of poetry and its sceptics.

There’s an old argument that modern poetry is found in songwriters rather than writers who are specifically poets. Bob Dylan once called Smokey Robinson “America’s greatest living poet” and it seems possible to extend this idea to many other writers. Where once poetry was a spoken-word, populist form it became elitist and exclusive. If, however, we allow songwriters to be acknowledged as poets we can reclaim its rightful position as the most democratic of writing types. Certainly, there’s some really awful songwriting but no higher a proportion than bad prose fiction, bad drama or indeed bad film-making. Artists like Smokey Robinson, Dylan himself, Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen have every right to be considered great poets, simply poets who use a different means to transmit their ideas.

A recent project by Roddy Woomble, lead singer of Idlewild, involved a collaboration between a host of Scottish writers and musicians called Ballads Of The Book. An album of poems by the writers put to music by the musicians. This was a wonderful way to highlight the strength of Scottish music and writing as well as to open up poetry to a receptive but perhaps unfamiliar audience. Amongst the writers, established names like Edwin Morgan and Alasdair Gray sat alongside up and comers like Alan Bissett and Hal Duncan. Music was provided by the likes of Karine Polwart, Aereogramme and, of course, Woomble’s own band. The album contained some real gems and provided further evidence of the connection between poetry and songwriting.

Welcome as it is, and despite the fact that it validates both forms, poetry doesn’t even need songwriting to remain absolutely essential. There is truly no more concise or effective way to convey image and emotion in writing. For me prose and drama have always seemed like the upstart younger siblings of the true premier form. They may well delight, inform and inspire but they need so much more time to do it. They lack the immediacy of poetry where an aspect of the human condition can be captured in just a few short lines. The problem of commercial success will no doubt remain but as the poet Robert Graves said “There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.”

If you’re interested in reading further have a look at:

Alan Bissett’s Website

and

Hal Duncan’s Blog

As well as any work by any of the other fantastic writers who inspired this article.

Popularity: 4% [?]

If you enjoyed this article, you might want to read:

• Ulysses Fear - My Struggles with James Joyce
• Mister Sandman, Bring Me A Dream….

Click here to read more by Martin Di Paola

This post is tagged Poetry