Poetry and Pop


Page 2 (of 13)




 1 |
 2 |
 3 |
 4 |
 5 |
 6 |
 7 |
 8 |
 9 |
 10 |
 11 |
 12 |
 13 |







The results are interesting but mixed. That is, while Sweet Nothings
gives readers a sense of how pop music has traveled into the mainstream
of American poetry, many of the poems invoke rock to underwrite a range
of commonplaces. Aloud has different strengths. Situated within a
tradition of experimental writing, the collection nicely points up the way
rap's social aesthetic and characteristic syntax have influenced many
contemporary
poets. But the conventions of this in-your-face style are surprisingly strict;
there's a sameness of tone in these pieces that threatens to dull the reader.





And whatever's gained (a great deal) by the sheer number of poems in both
of these two anthologies, there's also the downside of plenitude. Poet Katha
Pollitt mused over this particular problem a few years back. Having been
invited to contribute to an anthology about potatoes, Pollitt wrote: "my
joy in being solicited was clouded by the suspicion that the proposed collection
would include every scrap of verse written about  spuds since the invention
of the hand masher." While there are no hand mashers in either of these
volumes, there's plenty of Elvis (in one) and MTV-inspired riffs (in the
other), and a number of poems that feel unfinished, tossed-off. 






In spite of their nominal similarities, these anthologies have different
projects. Sweet Nothings, which is surprisingly old-fashioned for
a book about rock, has coverage as its goal. According to its editor, Jim
Elledge, the collection is meant to showcase "works of literary merit
in which one genre or another or rock and roll plays a part, whether overtly
or subtly." Aloud, on the other hand, has more of a
literary-political
agenda. "This book dares state the obvious," co-editor Bob Holman
writes, "rap is poetry and its spoken essence is central to the
popularization
of poetry." Hmm. Haven't we heard something like this before -- in
anthologies from the late-sixties and early seventies with titles like The
Poetry of Rock? Happily, as is often the case, many of the poems in Sweet
Nothings and Aloud are sharper than the prose commentaries that introduce
them.





            Back to the First 
              Page
            On to the next page