Poetry today

Before starting Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern poetry, in order to get an idea of David Orr's work, without much difficulty, I landed on his article regarding poetry in O's magazine and his `The Politics of poetry' article on poetry foundation. The beginning of the latter article had me trifle amazed that he linked poetry and politics. It augurs well.

Jump into the book. The `personal' chapter is a sunny day for the general reader. At the end of it, the reader can tell how a poet can keep his/her person out of the poem and still make the reader think that he/she has been a confidante. Sharon Olds tell all poetry is a good example of how she distances herself from the whole scene, while still escaping its influence.

The `politics' chapter is certain to lose audience with its difficulty. A common affliction of prose and not just poetry. Poetry don't worry, you are fine, nothings wrong with your form.

That brings us to the form chapter. A turning point in the life of poetry which takes it back to its definition. This is a good place of discussion for all readers to find themselves in - questioning an art form, its purpose.

The rest of the chapters are like voices from a distant world. Like his articles, the idea and intentions of introducing general readers to poetry are great. But his choice of approach - birds eye view at the world of poetry, moved me a step down from liking the book. The author does say in the introduction that it is not an inclusive approach which does justify the end product's loose stucture but by degrees it moves away a lot. In the last chapter of getting personal with how 'water' poem of Philips Larkin changed his attitude towards poetry, he does get his bearings back as the messenger of poetry.

Using the author's metaphor of poetry as Belgium, once there you would like to see how it is different from your native country in detail and it suffices to know of any similarities just in name.


With regards to modernity of poems,
American life in poetry