Poets have been getting some bad press recently. I blogged earlier in the year about the scandal surrounding Ruth Padel and the post of Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. Some snippets in the newspapers in recent days have put poets in the spotlight again.
First off is the Reverend Ed Tomlinson who has been complaining on his blog about poetry read out at funeral services, along with the playing of pop songs, in a post that mourns the lack of religious content in many funeral services today:
http://sbarnabas.com/blog/2009/10/05/the-death-of-death/
The post refers to ‘pithy platitudes of sentimental and secular poets’ and says ‘the best our secularist friends (and those they dupe) can hope for is a poem from nan combined with a saccharine message from a pop star before being popped in the oven with no hope of resurrection.’
I’ve said before that I’m not a poet, though I confess I have dabbled with it in the past. I’m not a Christian either, though I confess I dabbled with that too in my younger days, but I can live without resurrection (so to speak).
I have sat through some not-very-exceptional poetry at funeral services written by non-poets, although those services did have religious content, and to be honest the lack of quality didn’t concern me at all at the time, but sitting here now at the keyboard I do feel that if poetry belongs at a funeral service, it should be quality stuff and not any old nonsense. If our schools are not knocking out kids capable of writing something fit for a funeral, someone somewhere should do something. But I don’t think that’s the entire problem.
There’s worse press for poets in today’s edition of The Times, a snippet with the headline Poet Found Guilty of Attempted Murder. This is the case of a woman, a poet no less, who slashed her husband’s throat and stabbed him in the chest after giving him some horny goat weed and luring him into the woods for sex.
This is serious stuff, a man almost died (at the hands of a poet) and I’m not for one moment trying to make light of it. But if a poet you know offers you anything remotely like horny goat weed or tries to lure you into the woods for sex, think twice before you accept. Again, though, I don’t think this is the entire problem.
In an unrelated article there’s talk of the Tory party imposing all-women shortlists for candidates in winnable seats for the next election. Someone is quoted as saying that this is reverse sexism, but I’m not so sure. I think it’s just plain old sexism, whichever way round you do it.
Of course, sometimes sexism, or reverse sexism, is tolerable, like the women-only writing contests and magazines, where like minded women can read about other women who cry while they’re hanging out the washing. I don’t see any harm in it.
In this instance, though, it’s because certain groups are (apparently) under-represented, backed up by the claim that only 29 percent of Tory candidates are women. Presumably this figure indicates that something is ‘wrong’ and needs addressing. Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats says that not enough women, disabled people or ethnic minority members are coming forward as candidates. So, could this also lead to all-disabled lists, too, or all-ethnic lists? But why stop there? What other groups are there that might also be under-represented? We might consider whether gay people are adequately represented, resulting in all-gay lists, or even whether people (male or female) who enjoy anal sex generally are adequately represented, leading to all-anal-sex lists. And while we’re at it, are poets fairly represented, and if not could we see all-poet lists? I suspect not, in fact I’m almost certain not, given the bad press we’re seeing at the moment, which is why it absolutely has to stop, and someone has to absolutely stop it.
In another news snippet, seemingly unrelated – but don’t go away – there was talk about ‘hoodies’, kids and young adults who wear hooded tops at school or college, and the article talked about them being banned from having their hoods pulled up while in the grounds of their school or college.
If you pay attention to the news, it won’t have escaped your notice that some of our towns and cities turn into scenes that wouldn’t look out of place in A Clockwork Orange at night, where people – hoodies typically – stalk the streets searching for perfectly ordinary folk to kick to death for a laugh. Of course, it’s wrong to treat all hoodies as though they’re thugs, because the vast majority of them aren’t. Still, you have to question how we got to a situation where groups of (generally young) people can go round at night kicking other people to death for a laugh, and think it’s acceptable.
Perhaps the answer, if there is one, might be to do with a lack of discipline.
I recall, when I was ten years old, walking into the classroom one lunch break. The rules were clear, you weren’t allowed in the classroom during lunch break unless it was raining. It wasn’t raining, but there happened to be a whole bunch of other kids in there, and I walked in just as one of them ripped a cupboard door off. I remember how we were all lined up, every one of us who happened to be in the room at the time, and bent over the desk to be given a couple of whacks with the slipper by one of the teachers.
I thought it was grossly unfair that we should all be slippered, as we weren’t all guilty of ripping the cupboard door off, but that’s the way things were done back then, in those early post-empire days when teachers and Olde Folke still had an empire mentality. Life wasn’t fair, as we were constantly told, and wasn’t expected to be, so there was no talk then of all-women shortlists.
But back in those days it was perfectly acceptable, desirable even, for a grown man to beat a young child across the buttocks with a strip of rubber, given half an excuse. All in the name of discipline. It wasn’t long, though, before this practice and others like it were banned. Luckily for me, I just managed to sneak in before they stopped it.
I’m sure there are those who will point to those days and argue that forbidding that type of punishment in schools has contributed to a lack of discipline. Perhaps they’re right, I wouldn’t know, and I’m not any kind of expert. Or perhaps it was the stopping of National Service. Maybe forcing people into the army for a couple of years was a Good Thing. Again, I don’t know, but with the attrition rate in Afghanistan being what it is, perhaps those days will return.
But what has this to do with poetry, and the recent bad press? What indeed.
Back in the days when teachers could beat young children across the buttocks with a strip of rubber, I remember being taught poetry at school (not that it did me much good, obviously). And it always seemed to rhyme. Rhyming poetry seems to be out of fashion these days, many poets preferring free-verse, which at times appears to be almost randomly arranged on the page. I’m not against it, and no doubt some people are very good at it, but it seems to me that free-verse requires less discipline than regular rhyming poetry.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s the whole problem.
Maybe that lack of discipline explains why poets are in such a mess these days, luring people into the woods with promises of sex, only to try murdering them, or why our vicars are driven to speak out against the quality of poetry endured at funeral services. Maybe the reason we have A Clockwork Orange acted out on the streets at night is the same reason we have poets making the wrong headlines. Maybe, if we’re to have any hope of all-poet lists and fair representation for poets, we need to move away from free-verse and get back to making things rhyme? I don’t know. What do you think?
