Skip to main content

Ideas In Poetry?

Much has been made, in the 21st century, in Britain, of the intersection of
"Science" and "Poetry".
Any number of known mainstream British poets are interested in science, the environment, and rational thought. Images and ideas gleaned from physics, math, and genetic science are interwoven into the writing of some of the best poems of respected, serious poets. Poets are expressively engaged with the dialogue between the varied fields of art, and science. Anthologies, books and collections of essays have begun to be published, studying, or at least discussing, how it may be that poetry can fruitfully interlink with the rational, intelligent progress of human "civilisation".

What, then, is the link, if any, between an idea, and a poem? In economic terms, what is the value added, by an idea, to a poem?

There is a rude fascinating paradox at the heart of these genuine questions - on the one hand, without a governing idea, or set of ideas, a poem (or text for some) can become merely vague, even lost, in something like pure language (or nonsense for some), So, some sense seems needed. But sense is not an idea, it is merely coherent argument. Ideas, in poetry, as in general life, can be good, or bad.

Let us consider a Cholera epidemic. The idea that the disease might be spread by a contaminated water supply is a good idea, in that, medically speaking, it is verifiable, and, if acted on, can save lives (by finding a new source of uncontaminated water).

Poetry doesn't work like that. Yeats had many "silly" ideas, Auden tells us, about gyres and history, and the occult, that seem outdated and basically useless. Auden's ideas, strained through Marx and Freud are of historic interest, but are not entirely sound, today. Wallace Stevens had ideas about the imagination that may not be correct. Claudel, too, had offensive political ideas, as did Pound. No banker using Pound's economic ideas would get a City Bonus in 2007. In short, the ideas contained in poems cannot be used to cure people of disease, or plan or man trajectories to any planet, cooling or otherwise. But, these poets wrote great poems. Poems may play with, elucidate, explore, or dance around, ideas, but they do not, in themselves, constitute ideas.

Poems, in short, are not ideas, but things.

And yet, poets, being human, sometimes have ideas. Where to put them? It would be a strange poet, indeed, who never considered introducing a poem to an idea. The odd thing is, it seems apparent that, it doesn't matter what the idea is, in terms of the success of the poem, so long as the idea is strongly-held, and presents a rich field of symbolic possibility. Ideas, as far as poetry goes, are interchangeable, so long as they add interesting words, and allow the mind, and emotion, to enter into those words, charging them with vitality.

So is it the case, then, that ideas are a delivery system for whatever it is - the green fuse? - that keeps poems moving, long enough for them to succeed. In this way, poems are (metaphorically?) like strands of DNA - facilitators that aid in the continuation of some greater, living thing. Just another idea, of course.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".