What’s interesting to me is the link between the first article and the second in this five-part series:
Next week: Adam discusses what makes a poem "accessible."
And then “next week” we get an article called “What Makes a Poem Worth Reading.” The article then goes on to note with seeming approval that many “experimental” poets move toward writing less demanding work, like Charles Bernstein ending a book with “a bunch of plain-spoken verse.” Anyway, it seems, that the unintentional claim is that what makes verse worth reading is accessibility.
Though the overall mission of the second article seems to be to suggest that the poetry wars are no longer relevant, this current installment in the series closes with an invitation to check out which “side” you fall on in the poetry wars:
But first, a little experiment: which poem are you more drawn to: "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver or "Chicks Dig War" by Drew Gardner? Which do you feel more compelled to read, start to finish? Which do you find more "accessible"? How?
What if your answer is neither? That you’re bored with the relatively limited bag of tricks up the sleeves of both poems? Or disgusted with how tiresome some tropes have become? Does that mean you have to pick a new side?
The arguments motivating the sides may be useful, but picking sides is often tiresome. And I don’t think that it can be easily or usefully done with such a simple “experiment.”
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The question of sides and conflicting values invites consideration of erotics, economics, taste. And those issues are more complex and more interesting than what can be revealed by choosing from a sample of two.
But there’s only so much you can do in a blog entry. That includes me as well as Adam Roberts.
