The Idea of Poetry
Beatrice passes on Charles Bernstein’s unfortunately correct analysis of the US’s National Poetry Month. It promotes “not poetry but the idea of poetry”. For all the organisers’ talk of accessibility, it is clear “the biggest obstacle to this access is … poetry”.
Beatrice has ruined my bright morning by reporting that Ian McMillan, another promoter of “accessibility”, has been added to the list of candidates for Professor of Poetry at Oxford. The man is, like John Hegley and other “popular” poets, a mercenary entertainer in doggerel, nothing else. His homepage is certainly uncontaminated by poetry.
OK, it doesn’t matter at all - and maybe if he was made Professor of Poetry at Oxford it would provoke lots of articles in the press about the disgust of the “intellectual elite” and “purists”, which would at least mean I’d have something to moan about here, for a change.
Coincidentally, I moved on from Beatrice to Cheek which happens to be commemorating NPM with what it calls “one of the world’s greatest poems” by Charles Bukowski. One suspects an unfamiliarity with Wallace Stevens, but it’s fine nevertheless.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Scriberazone A poetry site that’s just starting…
- Goalless
- Poetry on the news
- Alasdair Gray, A Poet
- Twin sets of turgid lips A few days ago, I rece…
