Inspired During Dinner with Hannah Tracy
Notes on Bad Poetry, Prose, Etc.


* "Poetry" as a literary genre, as Jonathan Mayhew notes in a recent blog post, is a relatively new invention. Pre-mid-18th century, as "literature" goes, you had "lyric" and "epic" and "verse essay" and "drama" and so forth--different types of "literary" writing, all of which we recognize as "poetry" today. Prose, as we know, existed, but until fairly recently, was considered "low."

* Aristotle distinguishes between "poetry" and "verse," noting that the two are not equivalent. Anyone can write verse, says Aristotle, but only a poet can write poetry. Sir Sidney borrows this idea in his "Defense of Poesy" and also makes the claim that there is fine poetry that is not in verse, and there is plenty of verse not deserving of the title "poetry." Devices alone do not make poetry. This claim is interesting in that its purpose seems to be to reinforce the division between "high" and "low" art. That which is high is poetry. That which is low is not.

* When a student asks me about the difference between prose and poetry, I tell them that in poetry, the lines don't go to the edge of the right margin. The test of poetry is the ragged right margin. I say this with tongue not in cheek. Then there's prose poetry--well, I guess that fails the test. Another answer is: if it's in the anthology under "Poetry" it's poetry. Again, an unironic answer. Prose poetry, as I define it, is like super-short fiction, but usually not narrative. My own work fails this test, too, though. My “prose poems” are usually more narrative than my lineated poems.

* The question, "Why write bad poetry if you can simply write an essay or a note or a letter to the editor?" cannot be easily answered. My guess is that the asker of such a question holds certain beliefs--unstated assumptions, if you will--about the idea of "Poetry" itself. It "should" do this or that. Why? Because poetry has always been distinguished from prose (or doggerel verse) as the highest form of art. This distinction has little to do with versifying techniques; it has to do with perceived quality. So if someone writes a “bad” poem, one critic’s instinct might be to say--that's not a poem. Or that's a crappy poem. And so forth.

*If someone writes a bad poem that happens to be a sonnet, the critic mentioned above (let’s call her a “lay critic”) might say, "that's a bad poem" but probably wouldn't say "that's not a poem at all." Interesting.

*The problem here is that "poetry" and "verse" have become conflated with "Poetry" and "everything that is not poetry." That is, we commonly use "poetry" and "verse" as synonyms. People have been doing this for a long time. Anyway, Aristotle and Sidney both say---no no no, poetry and verse are not the same. Any fool can write verse. It takes a poet to write poetry. Fast-forward to the present day. Poetry is a genre separate from and popularly relegated to the shelf below "fiction," TV, movies, etc. So how do we know if something is "poetry"? We rely on the old (false?) distinction--poetry is in verse (or it follows the rules of New Critical analysis; this is important because it allows us to accommodate "free verse" as well, though it's instructive to look at new criticism in action and at Brooks/Warren's "Understanding Poetry"--you'll find that very little free verse is covered). Brooks’ _The Well-Wrought Urn_ contains no “free” verse.
Maybe it is this thinking that makes us say, upon encountering a "bad" poem--"well, shit, why didn't he just write this in prose?"

*Consider how we use the word "poetry" colloquially. Man, that guy is a poet! This typically means someone is really really good at something. Here, "poet" has nothing to do with verse, but with excellence of performance.

*When I use the category "poetry" today, it's a sort of shorthand category. It distinguishes "poetry" from what it is not. That is, if I say, "I write poetry" or "I bought a new book of poems," those who use my parlance know what I mean. And those outside my circle as well. It's not "fiction," it's not a novel, it's not a newspaper, or a collection of speeches. It's probably short. Or the individual texts are probably short. If I say I bought a book of poetry and it turns out that I bought The Odyssey, then, well, the category needs to be stretched a bit. The Odyssey is not short. It is an imperfect system, but it works enough of the time.

*It goes without saying that novels, speeches, news reporting, and short fiction can be "poetic" or use traditionally "poetic" devices. These devices, though, come to think of it, are probably related more to versifying than poeting. But maybe not.

*And poems, of course, can use the techniques of fiction, journalism, personal address (speeches, for example).


Where does this leave us? I'm not entirely sure.

COMING SOON: WHAT IS POETRY? THE SEQUEL.

(How does what we know about the poet influence how we feel about the poetry? How does "Personality"--real or imagined affect our reading? If Hannah didn't know Genevieve or Tony at all, would she judge their poems differently? Might she approve Genevieve and think Tony's poems stinky? Stay tuned.)