The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner (2016)

A lengthy essay on the thesis that everyone is justified in hating poetry.

Book Review: The Hatred of Poetry just made me feel contrary. I don't hate poetry and while some poets may be misdirected, and some poems inscrutable, naturally the only proper and logical course is to hate the poets -- not poetry. Certainly poetry is often taught poorly. A few years ago I had the good fortune to teach an evening continuing-education class in poetry writing and it was lovely. Housewives, farmers, grandmas, working folk, and the odd regular student or two, all ages and types and all with the desire to love and write poetry. The quality of the poems may've been all over the place, ranging from a crow on a fence at sunset (worthy of Bashō), to Mickey Mouse, to how a country row of mailboxes resembled gravestones, to teenage heartbreak. My students were wonderfully generous and helpful with each other, always self-deprecating, eager to learn, to improve, to express their visions. They were also tolerant of and patient with my not-well-informed but well-meaning suggestions. That class was a highlight of my life and it all blossomed from a shared love, not hatred, of poetry. Ben Lerner in The Hatred of Poetry seems to believe that poetry deserves to be hated, but to me this is mean-spirited. Small minded. More clever than meaningful. But an excellent way for an academic to get a grant. Ben Lerner's thesis rests on two fallible points: first, that poets, unlike other artists, fail to achieve the transformation of their poetic vision into substance. But all artists suffer this frustration. How many painters have taken knives to canvas? How many novels have been burned in manuscript? How many songs died aborning, never being heard? (In fact, Lerner's root example is song, not poetry.) As George Orwell said, "Every book is a failure." Or William Faulkner: "We will all agree that we failed. That what we made never ... will match the shape, the dream of perfection which ... will continue to drive us, even after each failure, until anguish frees us and the hand falls still at last." Or da Vinci: "Art is never finished, only abandoned." I can't say that any poet is a greater or more frustrated artist than Toni Morrison, Pablo Picasso, Beethoven, or Yo-Yo Ma. Lerner's second point is that poets must be simultaneously relevant and universal. Yet so much amazing poetry is neither and never attempted to be either. Much reasonably modern poetry (yes, you, Language Poetry) is completely opaque. It's neither relevant nor universal, but is certainly poetry (no, I'm not a fan, 'nuff said). There are other odd moments: Lerner eviscerates a fellow white male poet for being more of a white male than he. As a poet he's ready to leap into the cliche simile of "like a sensation in a phantom limb." And while he appreciates Dickinson he finds Whitman wanting because "Whitman's dreamed union never arrived." Yet he seems to miss that Dickinson's tiny, hermetic, insular poems spoke to the broadest universal themes and passions, while Whitman's Old Testament prophet voice spoke to a very individual and personal, almost confessional view of himself: the great "I" as well as "We." He does note Charles Olson's accurate observation that lines of poems are more poetically striking when quoted in prose than in the actual source poem itself; I've always found that true and puzzling. My thought here is not to discourage anyone from reading The Hatred of Poetry. It's worth reading. But pack a rucksack full of salt, keep your skepticism at hand, and always, always, always question authority. The moments I've had reading Lorca, Dickinson, Neruda, and too many others are moments I treasure. Just read "Death of a Son" by Jon Silkin, and who could hate poetry?  [3★]