Poetic elitism

It’s good to know that they are there and that someone is working on expanding the boundaries; but how many of us really want to sit down and wade through them?

Much like many of the various art forms, appealing to the general public is often not considered a laudable aim by critics. It suggests pandering to the accepted rather than challenging conventions. Whether this relates to music, painting, sculpture, movies, or writing, commercial success is often seen as “selling out”. This strangles the art form further, causing it to be seen as the preserve of the intellectual elite. It becomes something remote from the untrained person - where poetry is concerned this is probably at least 95 per cent of the population.

The point is that there is nothing wrong with appealing to the masses. Art in all its forms is there to enrich people’s lives. It isn’t there to confuse, or leave people feeling cold; it needs a reaction, be it positive or negative.

Disinterest means that a piece of art (in this case poetry) has failed. Commercial success, on the other hand, is an indicator that many people enjoyed what was produced, or at least felt they could access it. This is a good thing; it means there was a reaction. People saying how much they dislike something is also a reaction; it means people were interested. Poetry struggles to get the latter reaction now, not many people care enough.

It is not that long ago that people did care. That was when poetry was, among other things, a vehicle for comment on current affairs. A verse that relates to the present, last week, or what might happen tomorrow, has a very good chance of capturing the public’s imagination. It also provides opportunity for satire.

Poems, and other art forms, often provide a more entertaining and long-lasting record of an event than a news article. A deeply personal poem of grief, happiness, or even anger, may also capture the imagination. But if they are to be successful and have a lasting impact, they need to be in a form that allows the wider public to understand them. In the UK, the success of BBC’s series of books The Nation’s Favourite Poems was a prime example of such poems.

This leads me to the inevitable conclusion that there is no such thing as right and wrong where the construction of poetry is concerned. Ignore the howls of protest from the literati, and write what you feel in a way that communicates your an idea, or viewpoint, to a wide spectrum of people.

Feel free to use clichés. Resist the push for ever increasing detail in a poem and let the reader use their imagination. Use abstractions (thoughts) where you like. Despite what critics may say, readers out there will read and enjoy such poems. Leave the hardcore poets and academics to wrangle over the new and challenging forms.

Continue reading the more popular and “lightweight” and topical poetry, and continue to write such poetry, if that is what you enjoy. While it may cause angst to the poetic establishment that their own new forms struggle for acceptance outside their relatively small circle, the “lightweight” and the topical poem provide much more pleasure to many more people. The only way that poetry can regain any real relevance in today’s society is to appeal to a far broader range of people than it currently does.