Tuesday, February 3, 2009

What Can Be Explained...

If you've been reading my last two posts about Carl Sandburg, as well as previous musings about my poetic philosophy, you will know that I reject academia. Although I have a post-graduate degree, I have always been skeptical of the poets and writers who taught my creative writing courses. The first question I had was, "If they're so good, then why are they teaching instead of writing?" Never ask a professor that to his face, though, because you'll never pass the workshop if you do! But, over fifteen years later, I still ponder that question.

Not only do I think many academics (not all) are inept writers who are out of touch with the real world, I blame them for taking poetry hostage. Almost all of the critics these days are PhDs. Almost all of the poetry journals being published are published through university presses and are edited by PhDs. I know. I worked for one. And, to boot, almost every poem published in one of these journals or the infamous anthologies of poetry are written by PhDs or students who are getting their PhDs. Chances are, if you find a poet without a post-graduate degree in English, that poet is a friend of someone who does have one. I know this too because I've seen a lot of good poetry rejected so that the editor's colleague could be published instead.

Carl Sandburg recognized this trend in the early 1960s. As I've pointed out before, this is pretty much when the trend began. And he was fairly obstinate when the academics tried to analyze his poetry. In fact, he's famous for saying that, "what can be explained is not poetry." There is a lot of truth to this, and in this statement, Sandburg is giving the reader all of the power of interpretation instead of the high-brow academics.

Sandburg believed in the mystery of poetry. He believed that the message should speak differently to every reader. Remember, he wrote about the common citizen's plight, and it didn't matter if he was talking about Chicago or North Carolina because he believed his poetry could strike a chord in everybody's heart as Americans. And he rejected the metaphysical interpretation of poetry as absurd. While academics were comparing his imagery to garner deeper meaning, Sandburg contested that he wrote "simple poems...which continue to have an appeal for simple people," and that he has "been trying to learn to read, to see and hear, and to write all my life."

You see, that is what poetry truly is. Take it away from the metaphysical analysis that PhDs prefer; view the poet as someone who is expressing his perceptions of the world in real terms that people can understand. Every good poem should have expressive imagery, and the poem should tell a story. Why shouldn't it end there? Why shouldn't people be able to be moved by the simplicity of it in their own way? There is no reason why. Well, there is one. If poetry were returned to this state, that would mean that most of the critics out there would no longer have a job. They would no longer be able to publish their psycho- and meta- analysis of the poet and the poetry. They could no longer hold it hostage and call it their own.

The real problem, as I see it, is that this academic approach to poetry has bred poets who are afraid to write about the real world, and they are afraid to write "simple poems for simple people." We now live in a world where poetry is either metaphysical or "Hallmarked." Neither is good, and neither reflect the true art that Sandburg practiced -- the true art of poetry. His poetry changed a nation, and we need another true poet to take his place who is not afraid to stand up to the PhDs and bring poetry back to the people.

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