“A poem should not mean
But be.”
‘Ars Poetica’ – Archibald MacLeish
The greatest force against poetry in the last fifty years is academia. This is a bold opinion, but I do believe it true. When we think of the great novels taught, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, most of us groan and remember the horrors of tedious waffle regarding themes and characterisation. When it comes to poetry, we groan even more. We watch it being hacked and slaughtered from an early age in the classroom, by teachers that have no passion or interest or understanding in poetry.
My first gripe is with the selection; why are all the poems archaic and about coy mistresses and autumn leaves and elegies to people we’ve never heard of? There is no doubt these are amazing poems, but if we are trying to enthuse the youth, these poems are not the way to do it. Why do we not find Ginsberg or William Carlos Williams or Bukowski or Creeley at our ‘introduction to poetry’ lecture?
On top of this, I’m sure most of us agree, the lessons are rarely exciting. Poetry can be magical and although analysis is necessary, academic analysis kills a poem. The true irony is that poetry strives to tell us something in as few a words as possible, whereas analysis of poetry is quite happy to ramble on and on and on…
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” Oh how true and important. I think we need to stress that understanding a poem is not immediately essential; it is far more important to enjoy its aural beauty or imagery or aesthetics. Only then we can go deeper and start understanding it and from there encourage students to explore poetry themselves. Pushing them too hard too quickly will only cause rebellion; the history of poetry book sales has proven that.
Is it not about time we radicalized the way poetry be taught so that future generations will still have poetry in print to appreciate?
