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This is song was originally a poem published by the Society of Classical Poets in March, 2018.

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The Day the Poetry Died

Wonder why poetry is in decline,
While not ever writing one lyric line?
There is no experience more perverse,
Than self-indulgent poems in free verse.
Your pain, your angst, and existential doubt,
Pretension endured day in and day out.
Deep thoughts, believed you’re the first to discern,
Which all human-kind must now be concerned.
Substance, once required in days gone by,
Now regurgitated thoughts do qualify.
Banal pabulums we already know,
If you can’t be deep, at least have a flow!
Dryden and Pope are cut to the marrow,
When we’re taught to adore “The red wheelbarrow.”
Free verse, written without breaking a sweat,
It’s “like playing tennis without a net.”

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Steven Shaffer is on the faculty of Penn State (University Park) and is the writer/director of the multi-award winning film “Appealing” and the award-winning “The Ultimate Question.” More information is available at OpenHeartSurgeryAlbum.com

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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21 Responses

  1. Mark Stellinga

    Couldn’t agree with you more, Steven, as this little diddy clearly expresses –

    I write a little ‘touchy-feelie’ poetry now and then, in keeping with the trend on which the genre’s long been based,
    But far more often whip up works for which the ‘schooled’ patrons — those ingrained with ‘Modernism’ — tend to have no taste!

    Adhering to ‘convention’ – for an author – is a nightmare… stifling creativity – especially for the bard –
    And I refuse to fall in line with those who’ve fled the fold of we who pen in metered rhyme — just because it’s hard!

    So, if an’ when you get to where you’ve fin’ly grasped the concept — understand explicitly what millions clearly favor —
    Take a stab at whippin’ up a — ‘metered-rhyme’ desert — then find yourself a critic who can scrutinize its flavor —

    (Someone who’s been penning ‘Verse’ religiously for years. Someone like myself — which anymore is tough to find —
    Who’s chosen, unrelentingly, to stoke the hungry fires in those who feel deprived of what they claim’s their – ‘favorite kind’) —

    And see if they agree or not with what my queries yield — the very same statistics I come up with every year —
    That… while the FINEST ‘prose’ is oft preferred to NOVICE ‘verse’… it’s rarely what the patrons that I quiz are keen to hear!

    I’m praying that the day will come when someone builds a refuge set aside exclusively for works of ‘metered rhyme’,
    And does so fairly soon because the genre’s awfully weak… and — while I’m here to do my part — we’re running out of time!

    Super job on an issue of ‘ART’ now more important than ever to ‘authentic’ poets –

    Reply
  3. Roy E. Peterson

    As I have often said, “a poem without rhyme is a waste of time.” You used the perfect word, “self-indulgent,” for those who write free verse lacking in talent and ability to use meter and rhyme while focusing on the “banal.” These pretenders with “pretensions” pander to those with pain, angst, and existential doubt. Your poem is sweepingly on target. By the way, your tenor voice is excellent and on pitch.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Rhyme is wonderful and pleasant, but let’s all keep in mind that blank verse is an old and honored part of our English tradition, and ancient verse in Greek and Latin did not rhyme at all. And some serious subjects in a poem would be absurd if expressed in rhyme.

      Reply
  5. Russel Winick

    99% of what I write is in metered rhyme, and most free verse out there does little for me too. But the following well known poem by Langston Hughes contains scant rhyme or meter, yet it inspired me tremendously at the age of 14, and was greatly responsible for my deciding to take up poetry 50 years later. Thus, I would very much appreciate hearing what folks like Joseph, Margaret, Susan, Brian, etc., who are far more knowledgeable than I, think of the poetic worthiness of a work like this. Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to reply.

    MOTHER TO SON
    By Langston Hughes

    Well, son, I’ll tell you:
    Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
    It’s had tacks in it,
    And splinters,
    And boards torn up,
    And places with no carpet on the floor—
    Bare.
    But all the time
    I’se been a-climbin’ on,
    And reachin’ landin’s,
    And turnin’ corners,
    And sometimes goin’ in the dark
    Where there ain’t been no light.
    So boy, don’t you turn back.
    Don’t you set down on the steps
    ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
    Don’t you fall now—
    For I’se still goin’, honey,
    I’se still climbin’,
    And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Hughes often wrote in lower-class Black dialect, though of course he could also compose in perfect standard English. Believe it or not, this was sometimes held against him by snobbish middle-class members of his race who felt that the lower-class Black dialect was degrading and insulting, and should be eliminated or ignored.

      But Hughes knew that he couldn’t give a genuine voice to some characters without using their actual language. This free-verse poem of a mother’s advice to her son is excellent work, and it would have never succeeded if it had been put into standard English, with regularized meter.

      Hatred of dialect, I have discovered, is a marker of upper middle-class attitudes all over the world.

      Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Russel, I have a great appreciation for Langston Hughes’ poetry whose collection has a place on my bookshelf. I’ve read Dr. Salemi’s comment with great interest. For me, it is most certainly the “lower-class Black dialect” that makes this poem so successful – it gives it a depth that touches the heart. It touched me twenty years ago when I gave it to my son in the hope the poem would encourage a wayward teenager to grab life with confidence, take responsibility, and to achieve greater success than his mother… It worked.

      Reply
      • Russel Winick

        That’s a great story, Susan. Here’s another. Last year I made a special trip to where Langston Hughes’ ashes are buried in Harlem (inside the former “colored” public library where he spent much time as a young man a century ago), got down on one knee, and thanked him for his immense contribution to my life.

      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        How wonderful, Russel! The power of words is incredible, which is why we poets love words so very much. Langston Hughes was a remarkable poet and a remarkable man. His legacy is all important as your beautiful story proves.

    • Brian A. Yapko

      Russel, I have an appreciation for contemporary verse that stemmed from my encounters with Sylvia Plath as an undergrad literature major. In my view there are a great many aspects of human experience which cannot and perhaps should not be shoe-horned into meter or rhyme. This moving Langston Hughes poem is one of them. However, I think “Mother to Son” is actually a hybrid of free verse and classical since I perceive significant echoes of classicism in the meter of some (not all!) of the long lines (LIFE for ME aint BEEN no CRYStal STAIR) and the faded echo between “stair” and “bare.” This poem, though written in a Harlem idiom, is a dramatic monologue with a powerful and evocative voice which would sound inauthentic if the speaker were forced to speak in more formal meter. For me, dramatic monologues must always be true to the speaker — their education level, their social status, their ability to articulate emotion. And that may necessarily include the use of dialect.

      It may surprise you to know that the vast majority of the poetry journals I’ve been published in present poems I’ve written in free verse. I respect free verse — to a point. There MUST be craft behind it and not just navel-gazing. It must not be prose with arbitrary line-breaks. If we are to give up rhyme and meter than every choice a free-verse poet makes must be non-random and defensible. And even with that caveat, my heart is in classical poetry. This may change, but for almost two years now it’s the only kind of poetry I’ve been interested in writing. As between free verse and classical poetry, I believe it’s classical poetry which is more likely to endure.

      Reply
      • Russel Winick

        Thanks Brian – I’m in complete agreement with you, and also have written and published a number of free verse poems, where metered rhyme absolutely wouldn’t work.

  7. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    How did I miss this? I’ve enjoyed every line, but especially the closing four and the musical production takes the message to eagle-soaring heights. Thank you, Steve!

    Reply
  8. Brian A. Yapko

    Steven, I very much enjoyed the poem and the musical treatment! The song is magnificent and proves an important point — music could not have been comfortably written to a free verse poem. But a classical poem with meter and rhyme is a natural at receiving a musical setting. Well done!

    Reply
  9. Steven Shaffer

    I’m not trying to extend the conversation too much, but I just posted a haunting musical version of “The Tiger” by William Blake to the web site, in case anyone is interested.

    Reply
  10. Steven Shaffer

    Hi again all —

    I created a web page called ClassicalPoetryRules.com where you can find an ever-increasing set up examples of good music made from great (classic/famous) poetry. The songs from the original album remain at OpenHeartSurgeryAlbum.com — check them out, I think you’ll enjoy it!

    Steve Shaffer

    Reply

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