Freeman's argument that poetry is uncool, though, is correct. Telling someone you are a poet is akin to telling someone you are a blacksmith. The person will look at you strange, unsure, really, of what you do (or why you do it), and most likely they'll just walk away speechless. It's happened to me (poet, not blacksmith). But, if poetry is uncool, so be it. The world doesn't have time anymore for poetry, anyway. Poetry was perfect for the 17th or 18th century. Books were rare. Each word was important. Each letter a labor to create. Poems were easy to memorize, thus eliminating the need for expensive books to carry these stories. As books became easier to create, poetry spread, but so did the fantasy and wonder in novels and non-fiction. Poetry was relegated to the universities, to the academics. It became a bastard child of the literary arts. We have done away with the oral tradition and our culture morphed into a televised tradition. Poetry doesn't work well in the televised world, and it all but disappeared. But, with the advent and spread of the internet, poetry is once again given the space to flourish. As of right this second, Googling the word "poetry" yields 19,700,000 separate hits.
But, as Mr. Freeman points out, there is so much bad poetry out there (he claims it's a cop-out, but I'm not so sure). And the internet is rife with it. Navigating your way through pages and pages of bad poetry -- some so bad that we might prefer poetry to be declared dead forever just to never have to read such swill again -- is a difficult and often unfulfilling task. However, there is much good poetry still being written today. Freeman mentions a few in Powell, Hoagland, Williams; but there are others. Less known, though no less talented; no less important. Poetry is very much alive. And it's still as important to the consciousness of our culture as it has always been. The only problem is it is being read by an exclusive group of people, almost all of whom are writers of the genre themselves.
Poetry might be uncool. Poetry might not be hip. Poetry might not be "in," but like Freeman said, "[it] needn't be hip anymore, because all hip things die." He says poetry needs to be a necessity. I agree. I hope people read Mr. Freeman's article and decide to check out some local poets at a coffeeshop or online, or go to their local bookstore and buy a book of poetry. I hope they'll sit down with a good beer or a fine mug of coffee and let themselves be enveloped by the genius of the words. Blanketed by the warmth of the emotion. I don't think it'll happen, though. Why? Because people don't care about necessity. They care about hip. They care about cool.
by: John Freeman
by: Victor Infante