Left In Lowell

Yesterday or today, my husband and I had the morning news on while getting ready for work, and that Ashley Todd I-got-beat-up-cuz-I-was-a-McCain-supporter story was on. The woman also claimed that a “B” was carved into her cheek with a knife by the attacker.

I happened to pass by the TV when they showed the photo of the girl, which showed the “B” but…backwards. Instantly I said to my husband, this story is FAKE, she did that in the mirror, and was stupid enough to do it frontwards to her mirror image. He was more circumspect, admitting it was possible but that we just didn’t know at the time. Meanwhile, Fixed Noise and the wingnuttery types got their victim on. It smelled to me like a way to counter the “Obama supporters and reporters attacked by McCain supporters at rallies” stories but whatever.

Turns out, I was completely, in all respects, 100% correct. Score one for me!

I headed to jackiedoherty.org as I am wont to do most days, and read a post by Margaret in poem form referencing a Dan Phelps column, also in poem form (well, the form, maybe, but you can’t call it a poem) ridiculing the idea of poetry without rhymes. He doesn’t get it, he says.

But you know what is easy? Writing a poem that doesn’t rhyme. You just write an essay, then break it up in the middle of the lines so it’s hard to follow. There’s no flow, no meter, no sense.

What happened to poems that rhyme?
[…]
Modern poetry is kind of like verse. Only worse.

Lowell recently hosted the annual Massachusetts Poetry Festival. I didn’t want to say anything beforehand — heaven forbid anybody poke fun at an upcoming event in the city lest they be looked on as Lowell bashers. I don’t want to seem uncouth (though it’s probably the truth).

But now that the festival is in the past, I gotta tell you, the “poems” from which The Sun published snippets in a special section promoting the festival — I didn’t get ‘em. To be honest, they just sounded pretentious to me.

If you’ll excuse my indulgence, for a moment. Mr. Phelps, if there is something about which you know very little, please, refrain from writing about it at all. You’ll only hurt yourself.

“But you know what is easy? Writing a poem that doesn’t rhyme.” That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Ever. So blatantly untrue for anyone who actually knows anything about literature, or writing, I don’t know where to start.

Having taken intense poetry writing courses with very excellent, established poets like Charles Simic, I can tell you first hand it’s not “the easiest thing in the world” to write a poem, just because it doesn’t rhyme. The line breaks, the rhythm, word choice, everything is a part of the writing, rhymes or not. You spend a lot time time working over the same ten lines, and might create ten seperate revisions. Most poets write about very intimate subjects, getting a breath’s away from a flower petal or a heartbreak…the only other art in the world which scrapes so close to the artists’ soul is acting, where the actor must pull emotions from his own experience and serve them up to an audience. Poetry writing is raw, often painful, work. Unlike ranting incoherently in a column…

And there are rules to free verse poetry. Yes, you forgo iambic pentameter and rhymes, but actually, that makes things harder. Working within restrictions means it either works, or it doesn’t, and you know that instantly. A looser set of rules makes deciding on what sort of line breaks you want, what needs to be cut or added to (most often, cut!) much harder, and much easier to critique. Shorter lines in a poem are energetic, and longer ones more languid. The word at the end of a line gains emphasis, by virtue of the mental or physical pause evoked by going on to the next line.

By the way, it didn’t take much education for me to learn that. We’re talking middle school English.

He refers to one of Robert Pinsky’s works as a “poem” with all the condescension and derision that “quotes” can portray. He then takes this one small excerpt as evidence of why modern poetry is stupid. Because he doesn’t understand the four lines. Well, duh. It’s an excerpt from one poem from one poet, out of context. Beyond that, there are thousands of modern poets in the world…there are cerebral poets and there are imagery-driven poets and those that write long epics and those that prefer short. There are poets that write about their own experiences and poets that write about others’ experiences and poets that write using big, big words. And some writing with little words. No one says you have to like them all. It is largely an aesthetic choice and often one of just how hard you want to work for your reading enjoyment. I myself, even as a mature poetry reader, enjoy the more visceral, lyric, imagery-laden poems of the late Jane Kenyon, to those of her husband, Donald Hall, which are sprinkled with lots of literary references.

By the way, modern poetry written with rhymes often comes across as archaic and self-conscious. Anyone who writes in rhyme has to be careful. Rhymes can be babyish (like the ones in Phelp’s column) too easily. If art needs to change with the times, meter and rhyme in the strict historic sense shifted to free verse, and to do anything else is a sign of an inexperienced poet, or else one of a brave poet. There are good poets who can pull of rhyme and strict meter in this day and age. They are exceptionally rare. But that’s not because free verse is easy so most poets just stick to that.

But one thing is clear to anyone with half a brain for literature: poetry, “even” free verse, isn’t easy.

Now, writing a column in the Lowell Sun, apparently, is like a cakewalk. Anyone seems to be able to do it. All you have to do is have some outrage, a computer, and a lack of understanding of your subject.

My advice to Mr. Phelps: stay away from writing about poetry. In fact, I think you should entirely stay away from writing about writing at all. Given your history with it, I mean.

There’s really not much more to say on this. Welcome to the bandwagon…

(Via BMG.)

Update: I just love this part:

Weld said he’s never endorsed a Democrat for president before, but in the last six weeks or so, it became “close to a no-brainer.”

Ouch!

What affect this specific endorsement has is questionable, especially as the biggest impact would be in MA and we’re a safe state, but it adds to the general narrative that a lot of moderate, and even some conservative, Republicans are endorsing Obama over McCain. According to Weld, “It’s not often you get a guy with his combination of qualities, chief among which I would say is the deep sense of calm he displays, and I think that’s a product of his equally deep intelligence.” It appears he believes that Obama definitely has the temperament and judgment to be President.

Given that he backed play-to-the-far-right-base Mittster “Hair” Romney in the primary…oh, nevermind. Let’s just enjoy the day!

Just a reminder, tomorrow is the fall Household Hazardous Waste Day. Gate opens at 9 am, last car at 1 pm. Cawley Stadium (map) on Douglas Road from 9am until 1pm. For more details visit the city’s webpage on what is accepted.

Another poll has come out regarding the up-and-coming ballot initiatives voters face on November 4th.

First, the decent news for those who are sick of throwing nonviolent offenders into jail for up to several years for a small amount of pot, which is arguably just about as harmful (in the general population) as smoking, which is legal. The yes-on-two vote is 51% to 32% opposed, with 16% undecided. Seems like with the way things are going, it’ll pass.

Second, the OK news for the dogs: 44% in this poll support banning racing, and 43% are opposed, with 13% up for grabs. The poll consisted of 400 people, called between Monday and Wednesday, with a 4.9% margin of error (pretty large if you ask me) so things are up in the air on Question 3 (which I encourage people to vote Yes on - you would too if you knew a greyhound adopted from the tracks which was seriously screwed up in the head).

The best news, however, comes on the income tax repeal question - Question 1. Fully 59% oppose the measure. 26% support it. That’s some really low support numbers. Shows that people are more educated this time around (as opposed to 2002). People are becoming less afraid to say, “hey, if we want services, we need to pay for them.” Progressives have made their message clear and people are listening. Doesn’t hurt that our side had $3.5M to spend on ads and grassroots campaigning this time either (taking no chances, as the boston.com article says). But that doesn’t explain the extreme margin between those pro and against.

But if you want Question #3 to pass (and if you are not a cold hearted cruel person, you should, you really should), you have got to talk to your friends and neighbors and tell them to vote with the dogs, Yes on Three!

(As to Question Two, vote your conscience. But remember this: we spend a lot of money incarcerating people for small amounts of marijuana possession. But if we pass Q3, we turn a money sink into a money gain, as people who are caught pay a fine to the state. It seems like a no brainer to me, at least fiscally.)