Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Side note for poets, Pt.2

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm right about how hilarious the idea is of this online poet character who is just absolutely arrogant, a complete asshole full of unmitigated brag and trash-talk, perfectly convinced that his poetry is worth crowing about and rubbing peoples' faces in.

Not often, though! Usually I think it's a pretty nifty bit of a satire on the shy, retiring type we have grown to expect, after generations of poets force-fed humility pie from society's generously apathetic hand. I try to work the premise in various ways, to raise questions about the worth of art's process - is it worth working through the worst you can do and the shame of placing it before the world, in order to put yourself in position to luck into your best? which indeed you may not recognize, not immediately?- or the role that self-delusion plays in greatness, or the question of why it is that poetry has so diminished from the center of our cultural stage. Shunted-aside and denigrated in the pantheon of contemporary art forms, consigned now to a position of delicacy and inconsequence, suitable mostly for expressing intimate, personal feelings - when it had formerly been considered capable of slashing epic strokes upon the grandest of canvasses! And stuff.

Also, since my poetry fucking RULES, it works purely on that more facile, sincere level as well.

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