Re: [acornlive] the purpose of poetry
Eli Mare (acornlive@dublinwriters.org)
Mon, 12 Apr 1999 11:51:24 +0100
Having at first skimmed through Gordon's comments I thought that what he was saying was that all poetry should reflect only the good, happy things in life. However on closer inspection I re-read the line:
"To wish to show how artfully one can depress people (and by this I do not mean to include the evocation of a sadness or wistfulness which may have its own beauty) is a deplorable perversity..."
I believe that what Gordon is trying to say is that depression for depressions sake is of no use to anyone. Loss and desperation are two very strong themes and it is dependant on how the author uses those themes that decides whether a piece is worthwhile.
Simply bashing the reader over the head with depressing thoughts will not do anything other than make the reader sick and tired, or even worse, immune to the images the author has tried to create.
Elisa
---- Begin Original Message ----
From: nessa@indigo.ie
Sent: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 10:28:35 +0100
To: acornlive@dublinwriters.org
Subject: [acornlive] the purpose of poetry
Hi list
I'm posting this as a query, as much as anything else. An
extremely talented poet called Gordon Dunham expressed the
following opinion during a critique of a poem over at our poetry
workshop
http://www.dublinwriters.org/discus/index.html
Gordon said:
"A major function of poetry is to excite and elevate the soul -- which is not
done downbeat, but upbeat. We have had far, far too much downbeat
poetry (if it must be called such)in the past five or six decades. If poetry
depresses, rather than uplifts -- then it had better remain silent. To wish to
show how artfully one can depress people (and by this I do not mean to
include the evocation of a sadness or wistfulness which may have its own
beauty) is a deplorable perversity -- not to be encouraged by well-wishers
of human kind."
I think this is a really interesting point of view, and one that merits debating.
Do you agree with his premise? What do people think?
I'd be interested to hear
Nessa O'Mahony
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