It is not for nothing that even Billy Collins now laments
being called accessible at every reading, interview,
introduction, and award ceremony, synonymous
as it is with unsurprising, bland, non-threatening--
everything, in short, that a good palm thwarts in order
to mean something never before meant in such a way
by another human being.
In a recent interview with Billy Collins
on NPR's Talk of the Nation, the host
of the program, Neal Conan, asked poets
to call in to join the discussion of how poetry
might increase its audience.
About halfway into the program, a caller, one Rick
from Sarasota, is on the air.
And he yells, "hey," boisterously and begins
to read from his work.
Rick from Sarasota reads for only about a minute,
but 70 seconds of passionate doggerel
on live radio in the middle of the afternoon
feels interminable.
And upon the poem's conclusion, Collins is quick to say, quote,
"well, it's a good thing John Milton didn't call in,"
end quote.
The host and Collins share a hearty laugh
here at the caller's expense.
Poor Neal Conan is live on the air and actually in stitches.
And when Rick from Sarasota mistakes their chuckling
for a glowing review of his environmental screed,
he uses it as an opening for more
and begins, indeed, to read a second poem, saying,
"I've got more.
I've got a whole book here."
Collins is laughing still, but you can hear the anxiety in it
now.
And then Rick from Sarasota says, quote,
"here's one on the tsunami."
And he launches into it with the same eagerness
of his first piece.
Finally, Collins, now apparently fearing for his life,
has to raise his voice, interrupting Rick's poem,
and says, Neal, are you there?
And they finally cut Rick from Sarasota
off, citing time, of course, and, quote, "giving somebody
else a chance," as though forced to explain
what sharing means to an overzealous child hogging
a playground swing.
Curiously, the title of this episode of Talk of the Nation
is "Collins Values Approachable Poetry, not Pretension."
Yet, what is this poem that Rick from Sarasota
has called in to recite, if not approachable?
Further, what are Neal Conan's and Billy Collins's responses,
if not pretentious?
If pretense is the presumption of importance and making
an exaggerated outward show, surely their laughter
at this man's poem and at Collins's exaggerated joke
about Milton present exactly the opposite
of what they sought to discuss.
In other words, their conversation
has drifted from approachability directly into pretension.
The problem here is that it's funny.
And in listening to this bit over and over again,
transcribing it for the purposes of this discussion,
I about fell over with laughter.
The poem the caller reads is terrible.
The passion with which the caller delivers his poem
on national radio only enhances its terribleness.
In fact, sometimes we are pretentious in the face
of plain, old approachability.
Why?
Because despite their program's efforts to prove otherwise,
approachability is often tedious,
full of expected turns and unsurprising language.
In this case, it's didactic, redundant, and poorly measured
to boot.
But aren't they pitiless, then, for laughing
at a novice poet calling up in earnest support
of their very topic?
Yes, they are, and so am I for laughing with them.
Actually, I'm OK with that, so long
as I don't have to pretend to enjoy bad poetry just
because it's accessible and that a fifth grader can understand
it.
I love the idea of children's poetry,
but not all poetry needs to please these young hearts.
Indeed, not all movies should be made for a PG audience,
and not all symphonies should be three minutes or less
to suit the markets of the radio, if any remain.
And anyhow, nobody more than Kenneth Koch has shown us
that a poem by a nine-year-old is often far more fascinating
than those written by adults, unconcerned as youngsters
often are with what a poem should sound like.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with writing
about asteroids or the Dust Bowl for a popular audience.
In fact, I'm glad for it, but that should hardly
be an imperative to all scientists and historians.
Lest you think I'm saying otherwise,
allow me to assure you I am a selfish, complicated person,
and I want a poetry far more sophisticated, imaginative,
and contradictory than I am.
I don't need to see myself reflected in a poem.
If I wanted that, I would sit around reading my own poems
to myself, which, occasionally, I do.
Jarrell put it like this.
Quote, "which patronizes and degrades
the reader, the "Divine Comedy," with its four levels of meaning
or the Reader's Digest, with its one level
so low that it seems not a level, but an abyss into which
the reader can sense to sink?
The writer's real dishonesty is to give an easy paraphrase
of the hard truth," unquote.
Actually, here is where I agree with Billy Collins, when
he says, quote, "once the reader gets into the poem,
I'm hoping that less accessible things start happening,
as the reader is moved into worlds that are a little more
challenging, a little more hypothetical, and a little more
mysterious," unquote.
Even for Billy Collins, I'm sort of stunned to say, I'll admit,
accessibility itself is really just a ruse, a Trojan horse
to get to the more complicated activities of the poem.
In fact, this call for accessibility in poetry
is a ruse, itself, to prevent us from encountering language
that might alter us.
For John Yau, saying, quote, "saying
that poetry is inaccessible is just a comment
on your own laziness," unquote.
I think it's true, but I reckon it's worse than mere laziness.
Nothing reeks of maintaining the status quo as much as this call
for poets to be accessible.
My favorite recent response about this
is from an interview with Philip Levine,
after he was named Poet Laureate last year.
The interviewer, Andrew Goldman, asks, quote,
"I wonder if you agree with John Barr, the president
of the Poetry Foundation, who, with the help of a $200 million
endowment, has been trying to popularize poetry
by encouraging poets to write more upbeat poems."
And Levine responds, quote, "hell no."
I can't believe this guy, Barr, is
a poet, because I don't think a real poet would
think in that way.
When a poem comes to you, you're not
going to say, oh, no this goddamn poem is just
too mean-spirited.
You're going to run with it," unquote.