Our Favorite Poets (on first recall)
We are sometimes asked our favorite poets, and the ones who influenced us. There are many and we are certain that there are others who belong on this list. This group has common character in that virtually all lived lives necessary to formulate a blend of sensitivity, pathos, and creative tropism. Yet, all speak artistically to humanity in a clear unaffected voice -
André Chénier 1762 - 1794 (Guillotined during the Reign of Terror)
Robert Frost 1874 - 1963
Louise Gluck 1943 -
Heinrich Heine 1797 - 1856
John Keats 1795 - 1821
Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 - 1950
Czeslaw Milosz 1911 - 2004
Arthur Rimbaud 1854 - 1891
César Vallejo 1892 - 1938
William Butler Yeats 1865 - 1939
Adam Zagajewski 1945 -
(There are others poets whom we concede are great indeed, however we have little patience with those whose styles have us interpreting and deciphering rather than enjoying and understanding)
DUANE ROBERT PIERSON
ON TODAY'S POETRY
Obscurum Per Obscurius
Verse dedicated to facileness, to saying nothing.
We too yearn to be abstract and obscure. We will dwell
on our feelings and life, neither worthy of contemplation.
Yes, today's poets are consumed with their nothingness.
We will play with those who do not understand what they
read, assuming it must be brilliant. Clarity will be our enemy.
Form will be our toy, a rebellion against convention,
clutter that will in turn be torn asunder. If we get it right,
decorate our banal utterances with gaudy ribbons
of pretentious bogus intellectuality, we might win a
distinguished prize or be published amidst advertising
in a lofty periodical. Free verse, blank verse, spastic verse.
To hell with the aching masses. Death to the oral tradition.
Scrub the poets affecting song. Poetry, the people's historic
passion, torn from common body and mind by an effete elite.
We obsessive didactics converse only with one another,
coo and bask in subverted inverted cleverness.
Poetry written for poets, debilitating incest eroding the soul,
illustrious professors peddling complicated pompous
tedious nonsense, designated with authority to be art.
Diamonds Amidst the Sludge
The state of poetry is stupefying. Once a magnificent art form that spoke to all people, poetry has become a mess. The vast majority of today’s poetry is the product of people with nothing to say saying it. Anyone with an emotional itch can put words on paper and call it poetry. It is as if all the refrigerator door sketches by every parent’s dimwitted child have suddenly been declared fine art.
Style is now a muddle in extremes; there is over styling that obfuscates and frustrates, and free verse that has become loose verse, or most realistically something that can be declared no verse at all. Ninety nine percent of poetry seen today is unreadable, much less memorable.
Our problem is to find traces of this fine ancient art in the sludge pile. Unfortunately, in this egalitarian society within which we dwell, all that is declared art is art.
What is Great Poetry?
Excellent poetry, like art in any form, is very difficult to create. It requires great skill and innate talent. Far more is involved than a simple urge to put words on paper.
Our test for good poetry is simple. We begin to read. If the words seize our attention and move us, if we feel the artistry, it is good poetry. If the poem imbeds within our mind as a splendid experience, it is great poetry.
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