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From: will.dockery@gmail.com (W.Dockery)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems,alt.arts.poetry.comments
Subject: Re: Resurrecting Poetry
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2024 14:08:17 +0000
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George J. Dance wrote:

> Ilya Shambat wrote:
>
>> There are many people who have no value for poetry, even some who see it
>> as pathological. Someone wrote on the Internet that poetry is not a
>> cure-all for low self-esteem. In my case it has nothing to do with my
>> self-esteem at all. I started writing poetry when I was 10 and was
>> recognized for it. And I did this in Russia, where poetry was a big
>> thing.
>>
>> There are many who claim that poetry is useless or impractical. I see
>> three very useful and highly practical applications for poetry.
>>
>> One is that it can allow people to express what they feel or think about
>> someone they care about, and as such can help to improve families,
>> relationships and friendships.
>>
>> Another is that it can allow people to articulate and work through their
>> feelings and their thoughts.
>>
>> And probably the most important one is that it can communicate one's
>> understanding and realizations to other people and thus help all sorts
>> of people in all sorts of ways.
>>
>> Finally, in case of a good poem, you have produced something beautiful –
>> something as such that adds to the civilization and the world.
>>
>> In my life poetry has been far from useless. In my life poetry has been
>> the saving grace. It is the reason that I was admitted on a full
>> scholarship to an elite private school in Virginia. It is the reason I
>> have most of my friends. It is the reason I've been with women who were
>> extremely attractive both physically and personally when I am neither.
>> There have been any number of people who have attacked me, frequently
>> very viciously; but there are any number of others who love my poetry
>> and my translations.
>>
>> Another common slander against poetry is that it is reflection of mental
>> illness. Of this there are two claims: Either that it comes from
>> personality disorders (such as “sociopathic” or “narcissistic”) and that
>> it comes from chemical disorders such as bipolar or schizophrenia.
>>
>> The first is not hard at all to refute. In many places such as France,
>> Russia and Italy, poetry is widely read and highly regarded by normal
>> people, which would not be the case if it was limited to people with
>> personality disorders. Poetry was highly respected in World War II
>> generation, which unlike baby boomers has never been accused of any
>> disorders at all. If someone is a sociopath and does not have emotions,
>> he would not be attracted to a pursuit that extols feelings; he would be
>> much more likely to become a businessman or a lawyer. As for
>> narcissistic disorder, it would pathologize everyone from Gates and
>> Rockefeller in business to Trump and Clinton in politics. There may be
>> narcissists in poetry; but I do not see why there would be more
>> narcissists in poetry than in business, politics, media, academia or
>> law.
>>
>> In case of disorders such as epilepsy, bipolar and schizophrenia, poetry
>> may actually be a way to make something good out of a bad situation. In
>> epilepsy there is heightened contact between right brain and left brain,
>> which makes available for verbal expression intuitive understanding.
>> That can be very useful for creative pursuits, and Dostoyevsky, who was
>> an epileptic, produced some of the greatest literature in history,
>> writing his greatest work during his epileptic fits. In bipolar and
>> schizophrenia, there are available for conscious use the parts of the
>> brain that are not normally accessed. This can likewise be very useful
>> for creativity; and people with these disorders can achieve naturally
>> the kinds of states that people in 1960s attempted to achieve with LSD.
>>
>> Another claim that I've heard – this time from an editor in DC – is that
>> the reason that poetry has become big in Russia is long winters. I have
>> news for this person. Poetry is big in place like Lebanon and Greece
>> that do not have long winters. There have been excellent poets coming
>> from warm zones such as Iran, Mexico and Chile. Many of the better poets
>> in America are black.
>>
>> Then there is the claim that poetry is unrealistic. The response to that
>> is that human world is what people make it, and something becomes
>> realistic when people make it so. If there is greater demand for poetry
>> and for arts in general, then more people who are willing to supply such
>> things will be able to make ends meet. The solution is to stimulate the
>> demand by getting more people to value these things. There is nothing
>> unrealistic about this; it has taken place in the past even in the
>> American history, and there is no reason why it cannot happen now.
>>
>> I want poetry to become as big a thing in the English-speaking world as
>> it is in Russia. There have been any number of excellent
>> English-speaking poets in the past. Probably the biggest problem has
>> been that poetry self-destructed. It was turned into cold cynical
>> abominations called post-modernism and avant-garde. When I took a
>> magnificent visual artist named Julia to attend an avant-garde poetry
>> reading in DC, she said, “This is not poetry.” On the Internet group
>> rec.arts.poems, I found the least poetic mentality of anywhere I have
>> been. These people not only produced absolute rubbish, but they were
>> absolutely vicious toward people whose poetry actually was poetry.
>>
>> The best way to make poetry a big thing in the English-speaking world is
>> to produce real poetry. Poetry that aims for – and achieves – things
>> such as beauty and passion. It is to leave in the dust the post-modern
>> and avant-garde gibberish and to produce something beautiful. People in
>> Russia read poetry that is being produced in Russia. Using similar
>> styles to produce poetry in English should create poetry in English that
>> people actually want to read.
>>
>> I can do the contemporary styles as well. For the most part, I choose
>> not to. Julia told me also after the reading, “I hope you never write
>> this way.” She was able to do excellent abstract art, but she preferred
>> for her work to reflect classical sensibilities. I took the themes in
>> her art and turned it into poetry. The result was a book
>> (https://www.amazon.com/Poems-Julia-Mr-Ilya-Shambat/dp/150234369X) that
>> made me – and her – the talk of DC poetry scene.
>>
>> I want to resurrect poetry. And that means clearing away both the
>> misconceptions about poetry and the post-modern and avant-garde nonsense
>> and producing poetry that aims for – and achieves – beauty and passion.
>>
>> Things that poetry is meant to be about, and things that have been
>> present in poetry that people actually want to read.
>>
>> Ilya Shambat
>> https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought
>
>
> Hi. I'm bumping your essay, without prejudice, to get it back to page 1.
> The intent is that new readers who come here can better see the number
> of poets posting here and sample the variety of poems being posted.

Well put, George.