Thursday, April 24, 2008

Columbus and the continuing saga

Hey all,

For those of you in the "old west," I will be in Columbus, OH! this weekend for a convergence. It (and job hunting) has been taking up most of my time this past week or so.

I will come back flush with questions and observations about our need for clear, narrative poetry.

Here are two quotes to chew on, while you wait:

"I want poetry to trump film in the public consciousness."

"Obscure novels are found all the time and made into movies, big movies. Maybe poems could do a little less with the endless personal stuff."

Thoughts?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Palmer:

You left us in your last entry with two quotes:

"I want poetry to trump film in the public consciousness."

I would love for this to happen. Before film, poetry and oral traditions exists as a primary story-telling method.I think a lot of the points you made in your treatise about modern poetry would also apply to how to make this possible too.

"Obscure novels are found all the time and made into movies, big movies. Maybe poems could do a little less with the endless personal stuff."

I think while poetry can and does have the capability to reflect the poets' personal experience, the connection needs to be made from the personal to the universal. Also, I feel that poetry can and should be understandable to the average person and not lose the qualities (namely the beauty in usage of language) that make it, well, poetry.

A question to pick your brain: how do you figure that performance/spoken word/slam poetry figures into the achievement of these goals?

I wish I could have made the conference, but I found out about it too last-minute. I will try to go next year. I especially wanted to attend the poetry workshops/panels. How was the conference, by the way?

-Nicole

G. M. Palmer said...

The conference was great!
Hope to see you next year.