[Stephen Dame]

But the thought of this being some people's principal experience with poetry...that makes me wince. :?

Most people's principal experience with literature is Tom Clancy or Danielle Steele. Their principal experience with music is Shania Twain. Their principal experience with art is some crap they put up because it matched their decor. Their principal experience with photography is in fashion magazines.

A little general don't ya think? I think you may be confusing culture with distraction (pop-culture, which has and will always exist in various forms.)

True, most people don't keep Dickens at the bedside anymore, but I don't think you're giving "most people" enough credit.

And for what it's worth, all my literarti acquaintances (and trust me, these are the kind of folks who do keep Dickens at the bedside, and will tell ya about it without asking...) consider CMG simplistic and quaint. My aunt recently bought one, and the guy at the store even said to her: "This isn't very good." So subjectivity is what it is, but I'd wager CMG aint quite a masterpiece among non-Hip Heads.

[skippy the wonder dog]

I'm glad you have friends among the literati, Dame, but you might want to think about what might be on my bedside table.

I haven't attempted to place CMG in the poetic canon. So I'm not certain why you take issue with the notion that it is a cut above greeting card verse -- something that should be obvious.

[Stephen Dame]

So I'm not certain why you take issue with the notion that it is a cut above greeting card verse -- something that should be obvious.

You wrote that "most people" weren't to cultured. I disagreed. Your generalisation was my issue, not your table, that's all.

[skippy the wonder dog]

Ah, well, in that case, I have to disagree with you although we'll end up taking this way off topic.

The distinction between culture and pop-culture is false. Culture is defined byt its total mass, not by value judgments made in ivory towers. But the falseness of the distinction is actually beside the point, although it does demand I point out that I haven't called most people "uncultured" -- in fact, you're the one who introduced that value judgment. I've simply pointed out that most people have unsophisticated taste.

Based on sales, we can see that most people think Tom Clancy (for example) writes good novels, and that Shania Twain (for example) makes good music. More people are listening to Shania Twain than are listening to jazz. More people read Tom Clancy than, say, Richard Ford.

That most people don't have sophisticated taste shouldn't surprise us. Sophisticated taste in any area implies a certain amount of education (from formal or informal sources) and a serious approach to the subject. That is, you have to actually make an effort to develop sophisticated tastes in one area or another, and that cuts into your TV time, golf games, etc., so most people don't. That's fine; it's their life, and it's not up to me to tell them how they should spend it.

So it's time to stop wincing over the fact that most people have unsophisticated taste. People are going to like what they're going to like, and if they enjoy it, good for them.

Generally speaking, I'm not interested in value judgments. It's more important to be able to like CMG (or whatever you like) and talk about why you like it than it is to worry about what is better than what.

[Killer Whale Tank]

Oh, I'm used to wincing, believe me

Nonetheless, Gord's book is indeed fluff---the *poetic* equivalent of bubblegum pop lyrics, which is to say that Gord's book is to meritorious poetry as Britney Spears' lyrics are to Gordon Downie's. Maybe not quite that bad, but you get the idea.

But I think Skippy raises an interesting point, which is that songwriting has supplanted poetry, taken over the social space and role that poetry used to fill. At the turn of the 20th C, educated people all read poetry...now, they get the same hit from the Gord Downies and (in deference to Skippy's wonderful photo of a snarly Bob) Bob Dylan. And almost nobody reads poetry. Or so I'd argue.

I would also argue that Skippy's 'quantitative' approach to culture is a bit odd, and that one CAN meaningfully say that work X is grossly inferior to work Y. Whether or not we enjoy doing this is another matter, but it's a valid exercise.

Come to think of it, this egalitarian embarassment at simply calling a piece of crap a piece of crap may be one reason why people feel perfectly validated for living out lives marked by the consumption of appalling mediocrity.

I'll stop editing my post now :roll:

[skippy the wonder dog]

Nonetheless, Gord's book is indeed fluff---the *poetic* equivalent of bubblegum pop lyrics, etc.

Well, I dunno if I'd use the bubblegum comparison, but I wouldn't argue that it's not light. Most people look lightweight compared to, say, Ondaatje.

But I think Skippy raises an interesting point, which is that songwriting has supplanted poetry, taken over the social space and role that poetry used to fill. At the turn of the 20th C, educated people all read poetry...

Well, yes, songwriting has supplanted poetry. I'll take it a step further and put it to you that song lyrics are poetry, and any attempt to separate these things into categories is false. So, Britney Spears, poet of our day ... put the razor blades down!

People object to this because the whole Romantic school has left as its legacy the notion that there are words, and then there is Poetry, and to write it you have to be a Poet. But that was then, and this is now, and we no longer believe that a Poet is a person with unusual powers. Now, a poet is a person who writes poetry, so you need to define "poetry." And that's too hard for me to bother with.

I won't argue when you wince and say that this means poetry has taken a serious fall, qualitatively. But it does mean that many people do read, or at least listen to, poetry. No ... step away from the ledge, man, it's not worth it!

You could fairly argue that we are a much less literate society today that we were in 1900; although functional literacy rates are higher, cultural literacy among educated people is poorer. But then, the coveted degree these days is an advanced degree in counting the proceeds of cheating and stealing....

I would also argue that Skippy's 'quantitative' approach to culture is a bit odd, and that one CAN meaningfully say that work X is grossly inferior to work Y.

Hum, yes, I wouldn't argue otherwise. These things are usually obvious. Britney Spears's poetical efforts are clearly inferior to Gord Downie's, which in turn are clearly inferior to Ondaatje's. I'm just not really into those discussions; I'm much more interested in what Ondaatje or Downie are doing in their own ways. (I'm not really interested in what Britney does.)

Come to think of it, this egalitarian embarassment at simply calling a piece of crap a piece of crap may be one reason why people feel perfectly validated for living out lives marked by the consumption of appalling mediocrity.

Ah, it's not really egalitarian. It's just a recognition that culture is culture. I don't think it a coincidence that we use the same word for what grows in a petri dish. I actually call all kinds of things crap, and I'm not embarrassed by it. I just recognize that crap is still part of our culture.

Ultimately, the value judgments themselves are uninteresting. The discussion of why something is crap is far more interesting than the declaration that it is, because then you're talking about what it says and how it says it.

And then you have people like Christopher Ricks, with fearsome academic credentials, writing great thick books on Bob Dylan. So, is Bob a poet? I dunno; that's a value-judgment discussion, and it bores me. I'm more interested in what Bob does than in what to call it.

[Killer Whale Tank]

Sure. I'd agree that simply labelling something 'crap' or not is boring; the fun part is the explanation. I could go on about why Gord's book is fluff, but since we agree, why bother? As for the definition of poetry, I'm no more inclined to touch that than you, except to suggest that there might be a difference between words on a page and song lyrics which, by definition, are designed to complement a musical backdrop. We can call 'em both 'poetry' if we want (and of course there's oral poetry, which muddies the water further), but then we probably need some other distinction, e.g., 'poetry of the page' or something.

Dylan, a poet? Put it this way: the effects he achieves through the combination of word and music probably rival the effects of canonical poets.

How'd you like Ricks's book, anyway? I found it fun, but the scholarly disquisitions on some of Bob's throw-away lyrics do seem a stretch. Entertaining, yes, but that you could do the same thing with (say) Barenaked Ladies lyrics seems to undermine the larger point of the book, i.e., that Bob ranks with the English 'poets.'

[skippy the wonder dog]

I was enjoying Ricks's book but lost patience with him over "All the Tired Horses." It becomes unintentionally parodic when he spins about 16 pages out of:

All the tired horses in the sun
How'm I supposed to get any ridin' done? Hmm.

[willthenurse]

A friend of mine bought it for me as a present, I bought the CD the day it came out though, both are so good!

~Will

[Killer Whale Tank]

Well, Ricks's book is all part of the process of getting Bob nominated for the Nobel prize he richly deserves, so I'm not going to knock it, but---yeah, it can be a bit relentless at times. It's a bit like reading Bloom on Shakespeare: you sometimes want to ask, 'is there NOTHING your favourite author did that isn't brilliant??'