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What Happened to Great Poetry?

[transcript]

by Andrew Benson Brown

When was the last time you sat down and thoroughly enjoyed a serious poem written by a poet who is still alive? If you aren’t a poet yourself and you are watching this, it is almost certain that your answer is never, or at least not in a long long time. Where did such poems go?

For those who are poets, why is the poetry you see today on social media or winning top honors so different from the poetry that was written in the past? In short, what happened to great poetry? Now, this is a very big question. And in order to answer it, we have to take a long view. We have to go back to the nineteenth century. This was a time where we start seeing a lot of new ideas appearing in Europe.

First and most importantly, we have the research of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace who both independently developed the idea of natural selection, theorizing that man evolved from apes. Later, the sociologist Herbert Spencer applied these ideas to society, coining the term “survival of the fittest.”
Also in England, Karl Marx was developing his economic theories that modern man was becoming the tool of industrial forces, and arguing that the capitalist system driving these forces needed to be overthrown.

In Germany, Friedrich Nietzsche was writing about the Death of God, and how people needed a new system of values organized around the “ubermensch,” or superman—a superior individual who is beyond good and evil. Sigmund Freud was laying people on couches and probing early childhood memories. Based on this, he formulated the theory that people’s behaviors are rooted in unconscious desires—specifically, sexual impulses.

Now, when you look closely at these different theories, what you find is that they’re all more or less incompatible: Herbert Spencer’s Social Darwinism was taken up by cutthroat free-market capitalists; Marx obviously led to communism; Nietzsche didn’t actually have a coherent political theory at all, but his idea of the superman was appropriated by Hitler and the Nazis.

What they do have in common, is that they all “demystify” the world—they led Westerners to become “disenchanted” or disillusioned with the old religious worldview that provided a more traditional explanation of how things are.

Now none of these thinkers, except for Darwin, were well known when they were writing. But in 20th century their ideas really spread. So how did this happen?

Well, the short answer is, World War I. The first world war was so terrible—so far beyond what any previous conflict had been in terms of its destructiveness, it caused a lot of people to become very cynical. The war opened this pandora’s box and all these new ideas flowed out and completely upended the old order of things.

So what does all this have to do with poetry? Well, actually, a lot. Because some of these disillusioned people looked at how poetry had been written in English over the last 500 years and thought it was time for a change. The twentieth century was a new century, it was a new world that didn’t need to write poetry the way that poetry had been written in the past.

This is where we get ‘modernism’. The father of this movement, Ezra Pound, made it his explicit mission to “break the iambic line”—referring to iambic pentameter, the form first used by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century and continued in the works of Shakespeare and William Wordsworth.

Pound and the other modernists looked to Walt Whitman, who himself embraced a Darwinist philosophy in his own poetry. And if we fast forward 100 years later, to now, we see the fruits of this development. Or rather, the rot: self-absorbed, narcissistic poets who only ever write about themselves, verse that exhibits no craft, that just drones on about identity politics and subcultures and phantom racism. Poetry that, in short, is very boring and no one cares about. We’re not seeing any new developments here—it’s a dead end.

Sure enough, if we trace it back, the demystification that launched this dead-end track has now been proven woefully wrong or at least highly questionable. Communism and fascism proved disastrous toward a basic sense of human kindness, killing millions, even today in China. Darwinian evolution has never shaken serious scholarly challenges to its fundamental premises. Even further back along the materialistic line of scientific reasoning, 17th century Newtonian physics has been upended by the iceberg tip of quantum physics. Simply put, there is a lot more to our reality, to the meaning of life, and to the creation of the universe than what is in your science textbook.

From the perspective of poetry, what can be done now about all this? There is another, alternative tradition in American poetry that does not follow the post-demystification route. If the present trends in poetry we see in the Academies today began with Whitman and Pound, this other tradition begins with the Fireside Poets. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—the most celebrated of these figures, author of such poems as “Paul Revere’s Ride,” “Evangeline,” and “The Song of Hiawatha”—didn’t seek to make a radical break with the European literary tradition. He drew on the old forms to do new things. He used the meter from the Finnish epic, the Kalavala, to write “The Song of Hiawatha” in trochaic tetrameter. He wrote “Evangline” in dactylic hexameter—the meter that ancient Greek and Latin poets used a lot, but which hadn’t really been done in English. Although he was a traditionalist, he was also an innovator. And he was recognized as great in his own lifetime—unlike Whitman, Longfellow was internationally famous. But in the 20th century, Ezra Pound was so influential that Longfellow and his way of doing things all got thrown out.

One of the few exceptions was Robert Frost—who, not surprisingly, because he ignored modernism, is the only 20th century American poet who is read by normal people.

The most common argument against writing traditional formal verse —which is something you may have heard—is that ‘it’s old fashioned’ and ‘it’s all been done before.’ Now, that is not technically wrong—obviously, lots of people have written sonnets. But I hope this brief historical analysis shows you why this is misguided.

The fact is, there was never a point when the old forms became exhausted—where they hit a brick wall and became “dead” forms. People simply stopped practicing them. Meters and rhyme schemes and stanzas can be developed and changed and re-combined in an infinite number of ways. And the writers published on the Society of Classical Poets website are proving that this is so—working within the long tradition promoted by the Fireside Poets and those who came before them.

And if you explore the website, you will encounter some of the innovative ways that the best formalist poets today are using rhyme and meter—pushing the boundaries of what is possible with traditional verse to do new things and inspire the next generation.

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Andrew Benson Brown has had poems and reviews published in a few journals. His epic-in-progress, Legends of Liberty, will chronicle the major events of the American Revolution if he lives to complete it. Though he writes history articles for American Essence magazine, he lists his primary occupation on official forms as ‘poet.’ He is, in other words, a vagabond.

NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets.

The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


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33 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Great transcript that illumines what happened in the past and why the Society of Classical poets is in the forefront of creativity and restoration of poetry in form and substance as it should be. Most of the modern poetry writers produce what I call prose in a box of their own misguided making.

    Reply
    • ABB

      Thanks Roy. Evan came up with the idea for the video and helped with getting the transcript up to par as well, so it was a collaborative effort. Trying to go for a Prager U style, though doing animation is beyond my skills.

      Reply
  2. Paul A. Freeman

    Glad to see my poem flash up as an innovator, though not half as much an innovator as your sonku a day or two ago, ABB.

    Would you believe that today, as a competition entry, I wrote a poem in iambic pentameters and rhyming couplets and taking on the mantle of Chaucer. On the pilgrims’ return trip from Canterbury, he observes and encounters an accelerated case of evolution, from ‘primal jelly’, to ape, to human being.

    What are the chances?

    The great poet of today in the UK seems to be Brian Bilston, who writes both traditional and free verse, as well as innovative verse, though his left of centre topics may not be to everyone’s taste here.

    I’ve often said, and I still believe, that submitting poems to competitions, anthologies, newspapers and magazines is the way to get traditional verse out there. Moaning about your traditional poetry not being accepted, yet never submitting your work, is a self-fulfilling prophesy. I’ve appeared in the last two issues of the Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, with a pantoum (the whole issue was form poetry) and a sonnet, and have a third, in an ‘innovative’ style, on hold for this upcoming issue.

    And if you think form poetry is ‘dead’ or has lost its popularity, remember that Cynthia got top honours last year in the Maria W Faust Sonnet Poetry Competition.

    Thanks for the read and the watch.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      There are many venues for formal poetry, and I have had success in a number of them. But I have also had an occasional success in journals where free verse was their default form of choice. An example: the Winter 2020 California Quarterly contained 57 poems, all of which were free verse except for mine (which was placed next to last in the journal). This is the quarterly publication of the California State Poetry Society, a society in which, apparently, there is not a single poet who writes in the “old way.” Yet, they accepted one of my submissions (and I know of at least one other SCP contributor who has had poems printed by them). Like Paul says, keep submitting, even to places that aren’t normally inclined towards formal verse. My rejection list for such submissions is massive. But small victories like the one noted above, just might open the door for another . . . and then, perhaps, even more . . . perhaps . . .

      Reply
      • Paul A. Freeman

        I once ticked all the submission boxes for an anthology of short stories, and the final one said I had to be Australian.

        I emailed the publication, telling them how annoyed I was since my story was such a good fit, I felt, and they allowed me to submit.

        That story was a narrative poem, one of my Lost Canterbury Tales, The Prioress’s Second Tale, aka Annabel and the Witch, and it got accepted.

        You never know, so keep subbing.

    • ABB

      As Adam Sedia pointed out to me just yesterday, it turns out that my recent innovation is not so innovative. This guy has been writing haiku sonnets for over twenty years:

      https://dmarshall58.wordpress.com/haiku-sonnets/

      I don’t think his examples are particularly good–other than meeting the syllable requirements and being 14 lines, these free verse renditions are neither particularly haiku- or sonnet-like. But in any case, Paul, you yourself remain at the forefront of formalist innovations.

      I agree with you (and Tweedie) about submitting to a variety of publications. I myself haven’t done this much, which has mostly to do with the fact that I don’t write a lot of short poems; my epic excerpts have been rejected everywhere else because they are too long. Which is stupid, because online publications don’t have space limitations like with print–they just set arbitrary line limits because that is ‘the thing.’ So if you know of anywhere willing to accept submissions of more than, say, 25 lines, let me know.

      Reply
  4. Cynthia Erlandson

    You packed so much into this excellent and enlightening episode, Andrew! Thank you! I’m sure I’ll listen more than once or twice. And thank you, Paul, for the shout-out, and for remembering me!

    Reply
    • ABB

      The video has been getting steady views since Evan posted it on the ‘About’ page. With repeat viewers like yourself, it will continue to climb!

      Been meaning to make that MWF-winning sonnet of yours into a YT short; getting behind on producing those but will do that relatively soon.

      Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    ABB, congratulations on another top-notch production — one with not only dazzling visuals, but also a perceptive and discerning commentary. Let me add also that you have a great voice — clear, articulate, and commanding.

    Quite right — World War I was the immediate catalyst for a great deal of the cultural degeneracy that we see all around us today. You can’t let millions of fine young men be slaughtered in a pointless and unnecessary war, and not expect a soul-destroying cynicism and loss of faith to spread like poison in the body politic. The same thing happened with Hellenic culture after the useless and prolonged Peloponnesian War.

    Let me add one small point. The collapse in poetry was well in the works before the catastrophe of 1914. Pound and many of the other proto-modernists were active before that time, chipping away at traditional meter and practice. Horrible destroyers like Ford Madox Ford were preparing the theoretical ground for a revolution. They hated the late Victorians, the Edwardians, and the Georgian poets, and their hatred was combined with a parallel sociopolitical hatred of the West as a whole.

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Your point cannot be stressed enough: the decay was well set in by 1914. Walt Whitman was hugely popular among literary circles in Britain during the first decade of the 20th century (probably more so than in the US).

      This was a trend not just in poetry, but in all the arts. Picasso and Braque were making cubist paintings as early as 1906, and there were the post-impressionists before them. Schoenberg was experimenting with atonality by 1908. World War I just served as the catalyst to sweep everything aside and start with “year zero.”

      Now modernism is old and exhausted, yet its century-old conventions still govern elite thought today.

      Reply
    • ABB

      Good point about the decay beginning before the war. There were some subtleties I didn’t have time to go into since I was trying to keep the video short. I wanted to go into Pound’s fascism as well, but will save that for part 2.

      My question is, if WWI had never happened would these cynical artistic trends have spread beyond the avant garde to infect the general culture? A pointless question, admittedly, since we can never know the answer.

      Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      The great Swiss psychologist and adversary of Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, pointed out in a late-life interview that the period of his youthful studies (from about 1900 to 1914) was a time of unbelievable radical ferment in all fields. Art, literature, politics, economics, cultural habits, sexual relations, ways of thinking — all of them were under hostile scrutiny, and under fierce attack, and the most provocative and outrageous ideas were in the air.

      The outbreak of World War I was simply the real-world manifestation of this internal psychic frenzy. It should be remembered that the coming of the bloodbath was celebrated by most Europeans with wild, euphoric demonstrations in the streets.

      Reply
  6. Brian A. Yapko

    This is very fine work, Andrew, both the video presentation and the transcript. You make a very strong case for the appreciation of classical poetry and an equally strong case for the “dead end” that is the alphabetical word salad masquerading as poetry by those more interested in identity politics than art.

    Your survey of philosophical and literary history does a great job of explaining how we reached this point in the world of poetry. But I think that it also helps to explain the deconstruction of art, the (pardon the pun) decomposition of music and the narcissistic idea that anything people throw out there that is “expressive” is art — the more transgressive the better. I believe that eventually people will tire of that ugly and uninspired view of art and literature and when they do… the classical poets — along with painters and sculptors who care about form and beauty, and musicians who care about melody and harmony — will be waiting for them.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      It’s not even a question of “eventually.” The plain fact is that very little of the modernist project has ever been accepted (much less enjoyed) by the general public. The Vorticists, the Dadaists, the Surrealists, the Imagists, the Abstract Expressionists, and nearly all of the literature that arose from the cultural ruins of World War I have left the public cold. Its only success has been among its claqueurs and supporters in academia and the professional art world. In short, all forms of modernism are esteemed by a self-contained clique that has a vested interest in pushing those forms.

      Those not in the clique, who nevertheless support and defend the crap, do so simply because they feel that doing so allows some kind of special status to rub off on them. Middle-class social climbers are always saying how much they appreciate Picasso and Jackson Pollock, as a way to set themselves apart from the common herd who laugh at meaningless pretension. A lot of the people who show up for public poetry readings are in this same category. They don’t have a swiving idea what they are listening to, but they think it’s important to be there and show their sophistication.

      I’ve written an essay (“The Culture Vultures”) at Arthur Mortensen’s website (Expansive Poetry Online) on this very subject.

      Reply
      • Adam Sedia

        … and more importantly those with money who also have no “swiving idea” fund this garbage. In the past, funding would come from aristocrats who could use their own independent judgment about a work’s merit. “Eccentrics” like Ludwig II funding Wagner were what drove the arts forward. Now, these decisions are made by corporate boards or — worse yet — government panels, which are inherently reactionary (i.e. pro-establishment) and unwilling to buck the “received wisdom” coming from the academy. This is really a structural problem in our society that cannot be solved by artistic dissent alone.

        I will check out your essay.

    • ABB

      Thanks for watching, Brian. Thankfully you and others are doing your part to turn back the tide. As the wave rises, we must sweep these frauds away.

      Reply
  7. Shaun C. Duncan

    Another by-product of the Great War was the democritization of Europe and the final destruction of the old aristocratic order. Free verse, which had been an interesting experiment in the hands of unabashed elitists like Pound and Eliot became the means, much like the concomitant trend toward abstraction is music and the visual arts, of dragging down the whole notion of high art. Without form or rules, and in an intellectual environment where ugliness is prized, anyone can be a “great poet” – all you need is to win the approval of an increasingly degenerate academy.

    However, as Joe has pointed out above, the collapse was well under way in the already-democritized Anglosphere by 1914, and it’s no coincidence that many of the architects of poetry’s degradation looked to the French for inspiration. As such, we can probably trace the roots of the decline back to the French and American revolutions of the late 18th century, and we can see some of the other hallmarks of modernism, such as triumphant atheism, self-obsession, and perversion, beginning to emerge in the works of such romantic cheerleaders of that revolutionary spirit as Wordsworth, Shelley, and even Poe – three poets whose craft I nonetheless admire. Poe, of course, harboured a legendary loathing of Longfellow.

    I am glad to see such defiant advocacy of the SCP and its values in the face of the utter garbage that proliferates in the world of contemporary poetry. There are many fine and varied poets publishing on this site and, as a minor contributor, it’s exciting to feel that I am a part of a larger movement. I admit I occasionally consider submitting my work to other venues as well but I increasingly see little point – as far as real poetry goes in the early 21st century, this seems to be where it’s at.

    Reply
    • Paul A. Freeman

      Submitting to other venues is worth it, Shaun. In last December’s and this February’s issue of Red Herrings (the Crime Writers’ Association’s – CWA’s – monthly bulletin), I’ve had two sonnets published, the first time ever they’ve published any poetry in 58 years, plus a sonnet at the beginning of the CWA, Middle East chapter’s anthology, Arabian Noir.

      If you read my previous comment, I give examples of other places I’ve had traditional poetry published. Also, you’ll find that often pieces appearing on the SCP site have been previously published. This is usually noted at the foot of the poem. These are other venues to try.

      Reply
    • ABB

      Good observations, Shaun. It certainly is exciting to be part of this movement. After being shut out of so many places because of insufficient credentials, stylistic differences, not being diverse enough, etc, I have found a home here. Though there are some other good publications out there (I occasionally submit to Randal Bird’s ‘Sparks of Calliope’), the SCP remains the largest venue for what we’re trying to do. Evan Mantyk’s moral vision sets this site apart from the others.

      Reply
  8. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Andrew, you have packed into under ten minutes the wisdom it took me years to acquire, and you’ve done it all with eye-catching visuals and impactful language. Your latest production is educative, entertaining, and a must-see for all those wondering how and why poetry became such a bore. Great stuff!

    I’m also heartened by the comments it has elicited, especially on submissions. I’ve noticed a big change in having poetry accepted in venues that wouldn’t previously entertain my style of poetry. I’ve noticed a renewed interest in formal poetry. There are editors out there willing to publish classic poetry. I’ve even had my satirical book reviewed favorably by someone from a most unlikely source – a British university, no less. So don’t lose heart. We are making a difference.

    Reply
    • ABB

      Thanks Susan. Gotta be eye-catching to hold the attention of the young people. Yes you are write about us making a difference. Slowly but surely, we will take over. Poetical World Domination is on the horizon.

      Reply
  9. Adam Sedia

    This is an important video; it does an excellent job of summarizing the forces at work in the 19th century that bore their poisonous fruit in the 20th and its consequences for poetry. You are right to focus on Pound as the lynchpin of modernism in poetry, as well as Whitman as his “prophet.”

    T.S. Eliot is often touted by conservatives as a favorite poet of theirs, and while ideologically he was not a radical, poetically he was enthusiastically at the forefront of modernism. After all, he dedicated The Waste Land to Pound, calling him “il miglior fabbro” (“the greatest craftsman”).

    You are right: the survival of true poetry in the 20th century can be found in Frost (I would add some other examples: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Walter de la Mare, even Dorothy Parker. There’s even a category of “partials” like Thedore Roethke, Howard Nemerov, and Richard Wilbur.)

    One thing I would add: the phenomenon of contemporary poets writing only for other poets is primarily economic: they are the ones who give each other prizes, recommend each other for tenure, and review each other’s books. It’s like the relationship politicians have with lobbyists and legacy media: they scratch each other’s back, and anyone who is not in “the club” is a deplorable. Without each other, though, they have nothing.

    Reply
    • ABB

      Thanks, Adam. Am a big fan of Millay and Wilbur. Had to simplify somewhat, but might be a good idea to tackle some of these names in a future video. Call it, ‘poets who resisted modernism’ or some such.

      Great point about the economic incentives. The awards they give themselves are absolutely absurd. So much for promoting “equity” when you are getting a 100K cash prize for a total piece of crap.

      I posted this exclusively to Gan Jing World, not YouTube, because the latter platform has been shadow-canceling me. Am only using YT for poetry readings now. I’d like to get away from them entirely but they’re just too big. I will say though, that even as awful as YouTube is, it’s still the best way of circumventing “the club” and getting poetry to the masses.

      Reply
    • BDW

      as per Lew Icarus Bede:

      “il miglior fabbro” means “the better craftsman”—certainly not “the greatest craftsman”, which Eliot never believed.

      The phrase comes from Dante’s “Purgatorio, Canto 26”, Dante’s reference to Arnault Daniel.

      I must admit I am amazed that the poetry and literary criticism of T. S. Eliot, @ SCP & elsewhere, are so under appreciated; and I think that says more about the state of poetry in America, and the World, in the 21st century, than anything else.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Several persons at the SCP (including myself) have praised the literary work and criticism of T.S. Eliot, even while criticizing some of the modernist presuppositions that he shared with his contemporaries. Many of us recognize that Eliot, Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, and even Ezra Pound in some respects are all very great poets.

        On the other hand, BDW, I recall that on several discussion threads here you have said that you strongly disliked the work of Eliot. So which is it?

      • BDW

        as per Lew Icarus Bede:

        The statements still stand, exactly as they have been written.

        However, though T. S. Eliot was certainly a good poet, like Dryden, Pope, et. al., I do not believe he was, as Mr. Salemi has written, a “very great poet”; and he acknowledged that himself.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        You do not believe he was a very great poet, but at the same time you are amazed that his work is so under appreciated?

        Huh? Can you explain that?

  10. James Sale

    First-rate analysis, first-rate production, Andrew: this is definitely a kick-back, and each of the poets who are regulars on this site are growing in strength of this work (and the collective others too) which represents an informed, rational and – dare I say it? – beautiful alternative to the rubbish that currently is accredited as ‘poetry’. Well done.

    Reply
  11. Cynthia Erlandson

    Appropos of not very much, perhaps, considering the scholarly comments above — but I often think of A.A. Milne’s character Kanga’s answer to Pooh’s question, “Do you like poetry at all?” She replied, “Hardly at all.” I wonder what sort of poetry she had heard. (Of course, she could have been one of those “people” who don’t even like good poetry.)

    Reply
  12. Evan Mantyk

    I just happened to watch the movie A Month in the Country recently (a movie from the 80s based on a novel from the 80s… what could possibly go wrong?). It’s a dismal and uninspiring piece, but it seems to want to show how dismal and uninspiring life was after World War I in England and reflects its effects on artists and the general culture. I don’t actually recommend the movie other than from a purely historical perspective as a snapshot of what went wrong. The English countryside and people themselves that provide the backdrop are charming.

    Reply

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