Something clicked while I was reading the book reviews/literature section of the paper over the weekend. I don't like poetry. I used to, I have fond memories of Auden, Blake, Heaney etc., but I generally don't enjoy reading them anymore. I dipped into the poetry series that came free with the paper a couple of months ago, but nope, just general annoyance.
I often hear that poetry should be read aloud, or listened to. Indeed I remember that at school and Uni, and yeah sometimes it helps, getting the cadence, the phrasing, the metre - whatever you feel is missing from the written version. I can't say I've spent much time doing that recently, but the few I have found read online I keep thinking 'twat'. No matter how professional they are, it seems over-read to me. Have I become that much of a minimalist?!
Why has this happened?
I love good lyrics in music. I've just spent the last 90 mins listening and watching some extraordinary performances covering, arguably, one of the best singer-songwriters ever, Nick Drake. And it's his lyrics that make the songs deep, personal, encompassing. I spend a lot of time listening to music, and music with crap lyrics generally doesn't work for me. Having said that, some music where the artist uses the vocals as an instrument, relegates the actual words secondary to the tune they carry. It's a similar circumstance to lyrics in foreign languages, I'm forced to listen to the tune and emotion and not be distracted by any triteness in the words. I challenge you to listen to Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and not be effected by the emotion.
I even like prog and concept albums. I like the idea of telling a long story in lyrics, and I'm happy to follow that for 60-120 minutes. And that goes for opera as well. Admittedly most opera I like isn't in English, but well, it wasn't the most trendy of languages to compose in.
So, given lyrics are essentially poems, why do I prefer lyrics over poems? Is it the additional stimuli provided by the music? Is it, as Poe in The Fall of the House of Usher says (sample below with Orson Welles reading), that poetry needs music?
Is it that I've become so used to absorbing and responding to lyrics through my headphones that reading, an activity I associate either with study, newspapers, or books, just doesn't work anymore for poetry?
Or is it, and I suspect that this has something to do with it, that I find poetry on its own, too annoying. The purple prose that I want to slash, the ambiguity, the overt arty nature?
When I spend time just reading lyrics, I sometimes get that response (and Yes, Jon Anderson would appear an obvious choice), suggesting the music, and tonal variation of singing covers the clunkiness of the lyrics.
Why have I lost interest in poems? Any suggestions where to start?
B
5 comments:
Funny you should mention this. I picked up Wordsworth the other day and nearly fired it out the window - too purple, took too long to say anything. The only poets I seem to cope with these days are Robert Frost (whose poetry talks about sensible things) and the psalmists. Maybe we've got old and grim, and can't hear the music in the lines anymore? Or maybe there just isn't time to relax enough to "hear" it? Maybe it's a hangover of the soundbite generation?
I don't know. But I mourn the loss of my poets!
R
Do you like spoken word stuff, beat poetry, rap, etc?
The loss of the metrosexual is nigh...
That's because they aren't odes to your beloved wife's beauty - of course - duh!
I don't like most poetry. I hate descriptive language and metaphors unless they are extremely well done. One of the few poets I can think of who I would voluntarily read right now is TS Eliot. I'm much more tolerant of lyrics. I wouldn't voluntarily read Leonard Cohen's poems but I quite enjoy his songs.
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