On Bakhtin, poetry, and country music

Today's post is brought to you by Liz Self. Liz, a PhD student, teacher, mother of two, and my dear friend, is also the author of the blogs AD and BD. I love this post and found myself nodding in agreement as I read. Thank you Liz!

I am not a poet. I know that every English teacher likes to think that they can have their kids read and write some poems and call them poets (in the hopes of making them like poetry and authentic writers), but I am not a poet. There’s something about poetry and being a poet that is at odds with my nonfiction reading and writing self.

I like poetry, some poetry. But I mostly like poetry I don’t have to think too hard about. I’ll analyze the theme of some fiction, critique the author’s tone in some nonfiction, even get into a little drama (Cyrano de Bergerac really saved drama for me; ironic since he is, in the play, a poet). But I don’t want to have to think too hard about poetry. I like my poetry like I like my country songs* – it just has to sound good and be a little fun or say a little something about life. I don’t want to get too deep. I know there’s a lot of poems I’ve heard and thought, “Ooh, I like that,” and there’s way more to it than I even realize. But I don’t want to know all that. I just want to like my poems.

I recently read some Bakhtin for my sociocultural theories class, and he talks about the role of different genres. He writes, “Each genre is only able to control certain aspects of reality. Each genre possesses definite principles of selection, definite forms for seeing and conceptualizing reality, and a definite scope and depth of penetration.” He continues later, “The artist must learn to see reality with the eyes of the genre. A particular aspect of reality can only be understood in connection with the particular means of representing it.” I know it is a favorite assignment for English teachers to have students transpose texts into different genres – turn a dialogue in some fiction into a drama piece or a newspaper article into a poem. I’m not sure Bakhtin would like that. I think poetry has a place, and it’s not something that can be interchanged with other genres.

One of my favorite poems of all times – and the poem I always started every poetry unit with (yes, former English teacher here, too) – is Marianne Moore’s “Poetry.” Most people know it from the first few lines (or even words: “I, too, dislike it…”). The full poem, though, goes on to make several important points. First, it talks about getting to read poetry with contempt for it. That appealed to me. Second, it talks about “the genuine” in poetry, and that resonated with me, too. And it made me think about, with respect to Bakhtin, poetry’s place in the world (both literary and otherwise). Poetry for me is something that I want to connect with. I can read fiction and nonfiction and drama about all kinds of things that baffle and confuse and frustrate me. But poetry – I just want to like it. I want to go, “Hey, that makes sense to me.” Moore writes, “We do not admire what/we cannot understand.” I can understand a complicated poem – my AP scores from high school attest to that – but I don’t want to work that hard if I want to like it. And I’m not saying that poems that are easy for me to understand aren’t deep poems or are “light” literature. I’m saying that for me, poetry’s place is simply to resonate with me, to make me feel something – not so much to make me think. I go to my fiction and nonfiction for that. My sense is that it’s different for others, though. Poetry might be just the place for others to go to get a mental workout. For me, I want it to be more like People magazine – something light and fun and just enjoyable. A guilty secret, perhaps.

So what are my guilty pleasures? Most of them are African American poets. There is universally among them a freshness and directness that belies the depth (both literary and experiential) beneath. I read and learned about these poets while teaching my predominantly African American students (at an all-girls school) and fell in love with the themes and styles. I like a variety – almost anything by Nikki Giovanni (love “Kidnap Poem”), Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” (read it and then look at this photo of Chris Rock, taken by Annie Leibovitz), “Incident” by Countee Cullen, Alice Walker’s “I Said to Poetry.” Maya Angelou is a given – the woman is genius. On and on, I could go. But one of my absolute favorites is Lucille Clifton. This woman knew how to capture a perspective, a life experience, womanhood, African American womanhood, in poetry. Who else could write “homage to my hips” and “to my last period.” The one I loved to teach: “i am accused of tending to the past.” There’s a depth to these poems that reveals the African American experience and a breadth to them that makes their message universal to any reader while retaining their roots. Some are for fun; some are very serious. But all of these poems are about the genuine.

These are not simple poems. These are not poems written to be someone’s guilty pleasure. But that’s how I enjoy them – the sound, the feel, the movement, the first read. I know there’s more there, and perhaps one day I’ll read more into it. But for now – I’m gonna do what real poets do and just feel it. (Insert the sound of snapping fingers here.)

*Interestingly, one of the earliest poems I remember reading and totally missing the point on was John Donne’s “The Flea.” the thing over and over and never realized it had anything to do with sex. I think my literary analysis professor (a frightening Russian man with bushy beard who was suspect of my German last name) thought I was an idiot. He may be right. But then a few months ago I heard Brad Paisley’s song, “Ticks,” and this time I did know it was about sex. So evidently I can be taught. And furthermore, this really makes my point about the relationship between poetry and country music.