T.S. Eliot "used that ability to anatomize and exemplify the very forces that had destroyed the civilization that much such poetry possible" in The Waste Land, but after that he nonetheless managed to write Ash Wednesday and The Four Quartets. Eliot's contemporaries Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams had greater influence on subsequent generations of English language poets (Stevens on The Poets of the New York School, Pound and Williams on the Objectivists and the Beats). The first poem in my book Glued To The Sky is among other things a parody of Eliot.
In terms of significant post-Eliot poets, if not as determinedly modernist, and freely acknowledging the middlebrow taste I am hereby demonstrating (Walther used to be a defender of middlebrow tastes as I recall, possibly wrongly), how about Auden, or Larkin? Hell, if Walther needs demonstrations of pretentious erudition to consider someone a great poet, how about Pound?
I should have added Auden to my litany; I considered it, and I'm not sure why I left it out. Maybe just because the list was getting too long. Larkin would have been reasonable to add as well.
On Twitter, Walther limited his challenge to post-Larkin poets, which seriously undermines his own argument that Eliot somehow killed poetry.
I will freely admit that I don't read much contemporary poetry. The last contemporary poem I read that moved me deeply was BJ Ward's "Daily Grind" (dated 2002) which I read in James Shapiro's anthology, Shakespeare In America. Here's that poem in its entirety:
A man awakes every morning
and instead of reading the newspaper
reads Act V of Othello.
He sips his coffee and is content
that this is the news he needs
as his wife looks on helplessly.
The first week she thought it a phase,
his reading this and glaring at her throughout,
the first month an obsession,
the first year a quirkiness in his character,
and now it's just normal behavior,
this mood setting in over the sliced bananas,
so she tries to make herself beautiful
to appease his drastic taste.
And every morning, as he shaves
the stubble from his face, he questions everything––
his employees, his best friend's loyalty,
the women in his wife's canasta club,
and most especially the wife herself
as she puts on lipstick in the mirror next to him
just before he leaves. This is how he begins
each day of his life––as he tightens the tie
around his neck, he remembers the ending,
goes over it word by word in his head,
the complex drama of his every morning
always unfolded on the kitchen table,
a secret Iago come to light with every sunrise
breaking through his window, the syllables
of betrayal and suicide always echoing
as he waits for his car pool, just under his lips
even as he pecks his wife goodbye.
I can see that couple; I can feel their reality. The central surreal conceit is wonderfully economical. It works for me, powerfully, as a very short story. Could I quote ten lines of it? Definitely not. There are quotable moments, though, like "He sips his coffee and is content/that this is the news he needs" or "a secret Iago come to light with every sunrise." I don't think it's an accident that these lines approximate common meter.
Has enjoying that poem led me to read more of Ward's poetry? Sadly, no, but I suspect that has more to do with the modern attention economy than with anything Walther talks about in his piece. After all, I don't read a lot of contemporary novels either, not even by authors whom I already know I like and consider worthy of the time.
On reading Walther's piece my first question was -- if Eliot killed poetry, how is it Picassdo avoided killing painting or Joyce the novel.
It's true that mfa programs have had a baleful influence on poetry -- made more baleful by the fact that its an art form that does not have to answer to anything resembling popular opinion (and has not since before Eliot). Under a mountain of dross., plenty of good and even some great stuff has been written in the last 100 years And you don't have to resort to rap lyrics to find it. Not to dismiss rap lyrics -- some are terrific, but poetry can do a lot they can't and shouldn't have to.
I really appreciate that you treat song and rap lyrics as poetry and as part of the long historical tradition of poetry. This popular poetry is very alive, regardless of the question of “greatness”, just as English theater was alive during periods of relative mediocrity. But poetry in the sense most people understand it, published and read on the page, can’t really be called alive today. Since the 1980s, virtually no one reads poetry except other poets. “blaming” Eliot is silly, but it’s worth trying to figure out what went wrong!
Also, the lines from Public Enemy are such a good example of lyrics doing exactly the kind of work that great poets do with language! and why rap should be taught in any survey of English poetry.
Hi! Despite being late, I really enjoyed this piece (especially as a huge Eliot fan). In terms of contemporary poets, I think Jericho Brown, and maybe ago a slightly lesser degree Ocean Vuong, are writing some fantastic things these days. I highly recommend them:
T.S. Eliot "used that ability to anatomize and exemplify the very forces that had destroyed the civilization that much such poetry possible" in The Waste Land, but after that he nonetheless managed to write Ash Wednesday and The Four Quartets. Eliot's contemporaries Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams had greater influence on subsequent generations of English language poets (Stevens on The Poets of the New York School, Pound and Williams on the Objectivists and the Beats). The first poem in my book Glued To The Sky is among other things a parody of Eliot.
In terms of significant post-Eliot poets, if not as determinedly modernist, and freely acknowledging the middlebrow taste I am hereby demonstrating (Walther used to be a defender of middlebrow tastes as I recall, possibly wrongly), how about Auden, or Larkin? Hell, if Walther needs demonstrations of pretentious erudition to consider someone a great poet, how about Pound?
I should have added Auden to my litany; I considered it, and I'm not sure why I left it out. Maybe just because the list was getting too long. Larkin would have been reasonable to add as well.
On Twitter, Walther limited his challenge to post-Larkin poets, which seriously undermines his own argument that Eliot somehow killed poetry.
What about people writing today, though?
I will freely admit that I don't read much contemporary poetry. The last contemporary poem I read that moved me deeply was BJ Ward's "Daily Grind" (dated 2002) which I read in James Shapiro's anthology, Shakespeare In America. Here's that poem in its entirety:
A man awakes every morning
and instead of reading the newspaper
reads Act V of Othello.
He sips his coffee and is content
that this is the news he needs
as his wife looks on helplessly.
The first week she thought it a phase,
his reading this and glaring at her throughout,
the first month an obsession,
the first year a quirkiness in his character,
and now it's just normal behavior,
this mood setting in over the sliced bananas,
so she tries to make herself beautiful
to appease his drastic taste.
And every morning, as he shaves
the stubble from his face, he questions everything––
his employees, his best friend's loyalty,
the women in his wife's canasta club,
and most especially the wife herself
as she puts on lipstick in the mirror next to him
just before he leaves. This is how he begins
each day of his life––as he tightens the tie
around his neck, he remembers the ending,
goes over it word by word in his head,
the complex drama of his every morning
always unfolded on the kitchen table,
a secret Iago come to light with every sunrise
breaking through his window, the syllables
of betrayal and suicide always echoing
as he waits for his car pool, just under his lips
even as he pecks his wife goodbye.
I can see that couple; I can feel their reality. The central surreal conceit is wonderfully economical. It works for me, powerfully, as a very short story. Could I quote ten lines of it? Definitely not. There are quotable moments, though, like "He sips his coffee and is content/that this is the news he needs" or "a secret Iago come to light with every sunrise." I don't think it's an accident that these lines approximate common meter.
Has enjoying that poem led me to read more of Ward's poetry? Sadly, no, but I suspect that has more to do with the modern attention economy than with anything Walther talks about in his piece. After all, I don't read a lot of contemporary novels either, not even by authors whom I already know I like and consider worthy of the time.
On reading Walther's piece my first question was -- if Eliot killed poetry, how is it Picassdo avoided killing painting or Joyce the novel.
It's true that mfa programs have had a baleful influence on poetry -- made more baleful by the fact that its an art form that does not have to answer to anything resembling popular opinion (and has not since before Eliot). Under a mountain of dross., plenty of good and even some great stuff has been written in the last 100 years And you don't have to resort to rap lyrics to find it. Not to dismiss rap lyrics -- some are terrific, but poetry can do a lot they can't and shouldn't have to.
I really appreciate that you treat song and rap lyrics as poetry and as part of the long historical tradition of poetry. This popular poetry is very alive, regardless of the question of “greatness”, just as English theater was alive during periods of relative mediocrity. But poetry in the sense most people understand it, published and read on the page, can’t really be called alive today. Since the 1980s, virtually no one reads poetry except other poets. “blaming” Eliot is silly, but it’s worth trying to figure out what went wrong!
Also, the lines from Public Enemy are such a good example of lyrics doing exactly the kind of work that great poets do with language! and why rap should be taught in any survey of English poetry.
Hi! Despite being late, I really enjoyed this piece (especially as a huge Eliot fan). In terms of contemporary poets, I think Jericho Brown, and maybe ago a slightly lesser degree Ocean Vuong, are writing some fantastic things these days. I highly recommend them:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57693/another-elegy-this-is-what-our-dying-looks-like
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57691/dear-dr-frankenstein
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56769/aubade-with-burning-city