Interesting essays and conversation.
I've been grappling with this for years now. The realisaton that we live in a time were technical ability has been flung out the window and mindless drivel has become the standard.
Truth is, we love to categorise so much, or be divisive, in reality I read poets of all kinds - formal, academic, gutter, sloppy, elegant, barbaric. There are even a rare Glaswegian poet called Edwin Morgan who has taken on all of these guises. He has been writing poetry for 80 years. He is 90 years old. He has written, and arguably, mastered, every poetic form available - from the sonnet, villanelle etc. etc. etc. Onto concrete poetry, free verse, prose. He never shyed away from playing with his voice. For evolving, juxtaposing different types forms, ways of approaching the page. This should be encouraged.
In my teenage years, and the majority of my twenties, I did get invovled in a lot of drink and drugs, and naturally a lot of the bohemian poetry came naturally too me. Likewise Bukowski, being the dyslexic drunk that he was, had an affinity with me. I was never one to master technicalities, he showed a certain way of 'telling the truth' without 'obssessing over formal dress' - he was a prose writer, primarily, even his poetry, is not even poetry in the strict sense, it is notional prose, flash, kodak prose, momentary prose, character prose.
Perhaps there is a need to safe-guard formal style, there are some masters still using it in new and refreshing ways - Roger McGough, for one. E.e cummings is one of my most loved poets and he learned form with a plumbers precision, and then turned it on its head. But, this is the key, so often nowadays, the very idea of 'learning the maths of the poetic form' brings a large collective yawn in people. People want new ways to express themselves. The decline in formal poetry came about because people wanted to say what they meant with more clarity, with more direction, no hiding behind obscurity, metaphor, or intellectual competitiveness. People, regardless of intellect, wanted a way to catalogue their experiences, to name them, to report them, to poeticise them, without having to chain them formally.
Indeed, now, with internet communication, 'internet typing' i.e. typing instantly in the same way people used to talk, quick, littered with errors, and so on, and all the 'illiterate' ways that younger people now use language and text speak and basically a new kind of language of abbreviation and improvisation - it seems that there is no clear loss. Some might say we are heading toward a dumbed down society where all the kids type like this - HelO, hw do m8? wnt 2 go 2 cin 2nit c a flm.
I do want to learn to master more formality, but aside from that, I want to write with more self-discipline, more control. I do this every time I write, with more severity, more editing, and a clearer idea of what I want to do.
I must concede, I still feel I'm very young, I want experience to inform what I write, not simply 'poetic form' but then poetic form hasn't been that important to me, personally as a writer. I prefer writing in prose, in a poetic way, I prefer short stories, yet I post mainly wandering, formless poems that are in the raw state of being prepared.
'one is the song which feinds and angels sing:' - e.e. cummings.
Conversation and Pie
