Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

Hi guys!

It's almost summer, which means I have time to read again, and I thought I'd weigh in with my thoughts on Ben Lerner's new book — not a book of poetry, but about poetry.

I read the whole thing in a single sitting after I got home from work Wednesday evening. (It's about 85 pages, but the pages are small, with wide margins to make room for Lerner's marginal glosses.) It really is very good, and I value Lerner's idea that even the best poetry can never approach one's idea of what great poetry is, and that this is why so many people say they hate it.

It's the kind of book that's designed to get people talking (maybe similar in that way to Harry D. Frankfurt's On Bullshit?) — and I think it ought to make a nice addition to the conversation.

Here's a link to my original review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

That's really interesting. Thanks Brendan.
It's a whole book? I might even read it.
Hmmm, and what is my 'idea' of great poetry..?

Yes, it's a booklength essay, just published as a paperback original by FSG. Highly recommended and worth the trouble of buying it :)

Looks like I read 10/85ths of this book in the April issue of Poetry. Guess that's not enough to judge, though I will say this--if we're worried about the idea of what something could be, poetry hasn't cornered any markets. The same line of thinking could be put to novels, short stories, essays, plays, even Goodreads comments like this (I swear, my idea was better than what you're reading), etc. I may check it out on interlibrary loan, but I have to wait for it to be published first ...

I loved the excerpt of this that appeared in Poetry. It's reassuring to see that the book as a whole lived up to your expectations, Brendan. I'll look it up on my next library visit.

There was an excerpt last year in The London Review of Books, too.

Ken, point taken, but one of the points Lerner makes early in the essay is that poetry is special in how universally it is loved and despised: "Some kids take piano lessons, some kids study tap dance, but we don't say every kid is a pianist or dancer. You're a poet, however, whether or not you know it, because to be part of a linguistic community — to be hailed as a 'you' at all — is to be endowed with poetic capacity."

One of the reasons this book interests me so much is that it's the first one I know that explicitly takes up the idea that poetry is the one art form whose very existence has been addressed either from a posture of denunciation or defense almost since the start of western civilization. Why is that? It's an idea worth exploring, and Lerner has made some headway.

But my recommendation is also for the writing style. The two hours I spent with this book Wednesday night were among the most pleasurable of my week.

Will check it out, Brendan, considering I have been "endowed" with poetic capacity myself (ha ha). I will say that people have odd reactions when they hear you've published poetry. Most of it is negative, though there's a demographic dividing it. I come from blue collar stock (though I teach, pushing me to Team White Collar), and most of my family has been bemused, confused, or amused by the fact that I write poetry.

Another example that illustrates the point: My son, a cook, proudly told a fellow cook that his dad had published a book. "Really?" the other cook said. "That's pretty cool! What's it about?" Then my son said it was a collection of poetry. The other guy said, "Oh," and that was it. End of conversation. For many, you see, poetry doesn't count. Or it only counts among a tribe of ivory tower sorts with nothing better to do with their time.

That said, it's hard to believe it has been ever thus, especially given the special place in society afforded Homer and friends, whose poems retold tales of courage and warlike valor.

Great review and recommendation. Ken, I've had many similar experiences to the "oh" comment. And after my first book, a nonfiction book about grandparent grief following stillbirth, was published, several people asked if my next book was going to be a happy one!

Brendan wrote: "Yes, it's a booklength essay, just published as a paperback original by FSG. Highly recommended and worth the trouble of buying it :)"

I think I will. :)

It's currently listed as a Good reads giveaway!!!

...where your chances of winning are 1 in 6,598!

That's a lot of demand for a book that still only has 13 ratings. (Though technically publication day isn't till tomorrow — my local bookstore gave it to me early.)

I sit corrected. With 10 days to go until the actual giveaway, there are only 253 requests for 5 books (1 in 25 chance?).

I know through experience, however, that a lot of posters pile on during the final day of a giveaway, so there's that. Much better odds with Brendan's local bookstore, in the final analysis...

The Hatred of The Hatred of Poetry (or, The Empire Strikes Back):

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/boo...

Ken wrote: "The Hatred of The Hatred of Poetry (or, The Empire Strikes Back):

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/boo......"

There have been a huge number of interesting reviews/thinkpieces responding to Lerner's book being passed around the internet lately. One that I found especially interesting is this one, by Ken Chen, from The New Republic, which I posted with the goal of generating discussion in another Goodreads group as well: https://newrepublic.com/article/13450... . I find Chen's critique interesting because, as I understand it, it posits that there are (at least) two major opposing ways of thinking about poetry. There is Lerner's way of thinking about poetry, which centers so-called lyric poetry: in this paradigm, poetry is seen as reaching after the transcendental and divine, the infinite and ahistorical. Then there is Chen's way of thinking about poetry, which centers so-called avant-garde poetry (something Lerner discusses only in passing): in this paradigm, poetry is inherently, inescapably political and inseparable from history and mass culture -- it in fact embraces history and our human limitations rather than wanting to escape from those things ("experimental artists simply wanted to bring art closer to life"). If you hold to Chen's way of thinking about poetry (which I think many people do), or to some other formulation of the nature and purpose of poetry that differs so fundamentally from Lerner's, then Lerner's critique will inevitably seem lacking to you.

I saw that New Republic piece a week or two ago. Leave it to TNR to make everything about politics, but, even taking the platform into account, I found Chen's discussion excessively reductive. It's like he's arguing against the essay he wishes Lerner wrote rather than dealing with it on its own terms. I get the sense that Chen took Lerner's fish-in-a-barrel takedown of that silly Harper's essay personally, thinkpiece conclusion-mongering being his stock in trade.

The criticism in Lerner's essay reminded me of the poetry criticism embedded in Nicholson Baker's book The Anthologist, only in a slightly elevated tone. Just me?

Also, this was the first time I've read Lerner. I came him to via a really terrible piece of criticism by Frank Guan in the most recent edition of The Point Magazine, which has a nice collection of articles on the theme: What is Poetry for?

Ken, I couldn't agree more about Chen's TNR piece. Not once while reading Lerner's essay did I feel compelled to think it liberal or conservative. Moreto, I find Chen's case for the latter insufficient. Unlike you, though, I didn't read Chen's hack job as doing Edmundson's revenge but, instead, as sounding a dog whistle to middlebrow readers that otherwise wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of the more sophisticated dichotomy of actual/virtual and its placement in a larger poetic-historic context. A water-cooler take-down, if you will.

I liked it - challenging in places but we should all perhaps value poetry more!