Skip to main content

The Irony of Winehouse

It's ironic that Cambridge English students are being asked to compare a lyric poem by Raleigh with the pop song lyrics of Novello-winner Amy Winehouse. The irony is not that one is an established, canonical poet, and the other is a controversial contemporary singer-songwriter - or that one text is "traditional" and the other words meant to be set to music and sung (as the lyric was always connotative of a musical association). Instead, it's that the question seeks a moribund comparison rather than provoking a far more relevant and pressing point of dispute - the exam should have been a comparison between "Language Writing" by, say, someone like Cambridge poet Prynne, and Faber poet Don Paterson. Or, Bernstein, say, and Billy Collins.

Both sets are figures who exemplify, in their writing practices, interest in reviving and redefining what the lyric entails, for the 21st century. Indeed, it's a shame such an old-fashioned debate between high and low art has been inscribed by this exam, when the deeper concern is - what is poetry speaking through, and for, now? The very threshold of the lyric - is it communal, or individual, or both - welcomes discussion at this time. Hopefully Cambridge, the seat of so much vital innovation in poetics over the last 80 or so years, will have even more fascinating poetry questions next year. I've been reading Nerys Williams' new book on Language Writing and lyric poetry, which has occasioned these thoughts - it's one of the recommended books at the moment here.

Comments

Todd Swift, Sir,

I may be a maverick in this; but I
think every poem is both individual
and communal, whether the author of
a poem proclaims "This is a poem
because I say it is" or simply
relates "This is a poem because
most of those I show it to tell me
it is." An author's aesthetic has
nothing to do with it. If that
someone who makes a poem signs his
or her name to it, it thereby is
assigned to that someone; and if
that someone then shows it to
another someone, it thereby also
becomes communal. Even the poems
by Anonymous are both individual
(however vaguely) and communal.
Even if, say, indeterminate poetry
is better suited to this historical
period, that shouldn't nullify the
writing of subject-object poems.
To me the so-called Language poets
I prefer are quite lyrical, just
not in a "traditional" way; and
the lyric poets I prefer are quite
into language, just not in an overt
avant-garde way.
EYEWEAR said…
Yes, well, mostly, I agree with your wish to see a dialogue between self and community, subject and language, in poetic writing. As for whose property poems become when written / published - that depends also on the economic and political constraints of the period. I've sometimes suggested more poems should be "free" and copyleft, rather than fewer - as opposed to free-marketeers who use a marketing model for how they disribute and publicise their poets.
As you may know, Bill Knott is
freely distributing books of his
poems, and Simon DeDeo favors the
copyleft idea; and I've posted most
of my books of poems in my AOL
journal, but haven't been able to
get off the yes-no fence regarding
ownership. The last time, except
for one recent attempt, I sent
poems to a magazine was in the mid
1980s. Not sure, but it may have
been the magazine that took all
four of the poems I sent. Yes,
that did please me, as such events
always have; but over the years
seeing my poems so published
lured me less and less.

No doubt a period's constraints
impact ownership.

Perhaps too many of us are
possessed by the need to possess.

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise