So, one of the big arguments at the office is whether to do more timely poems, to feature poems that have more current political and social content. Now, if you read my stuff, you see I do a lot of it, sometimes well, sometimes forced, but I prefer to write poems that try to say something. I guess that makes me an agitpropist! A few of my fellow asinine poets prefer just to be funny in a general way, make eternally lasting commentary about life. I think that sometimes tends to diary-entry writing, which can be really bo-rrring, or endless lines about body parts and body functions. I try to solicit political poems via the Asinine Pulse (which I edit, as if you didn't guess), but so far, zilch. What do you think? Should we just stick to poems about the ins and outies of our days?
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Look Closer
So, one of the big arguments at the office is whether to do more timely poems, to feature poems that have more current political and social content. Now, if you read my stuff, you see I do a lot of it, sometimes well, sometimes forced, but I prefer to write poems that try to say something. I guess that makes me an agitpropist! A few of my fellow asinine poets prefer just to be funny in a general way, make eternally lasting commentary about life. I think that sometimes tends to diary-entry writing, which can be really bo-rrring, or endless lines about body parts and body functions. I try to solicit political poems via the Asinine Pulse (which I edit, as if you didn't guess), but so far, zilch. What do you think? Should we just stick to poems about the ins and outies of our days?
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7 comments:
I don't think there's a danger of asinine becoming all political, but I for one would kinda dig it if there were more political and social commentary on the site. I mean, isn't that one of the poet's jobs, to tell truths, to shine a light in the dark, to expose the hidden sores, etc. etc. But really! I mean, our journalists certainly haven't been doing it.
There's something to be said for ''telling truths,'' I guess, but I like to look at my role as that of an entertainer, and the real value of what I do is more about exposing a human truth--especially a really gross one--rather than a journalistic one. Know what I mean? With political junk, there is also a tendency to get preachy.
I agree that some of the poems on the site are a little light on deeper meaning, but I'm not sure that political criticisms/statements are the best pairing for asinine poetry. I think that any poem needs to have a deeper issue than it appears to have on the surface, as, like you said, it's a poets job to take on the bigger issues. If there's no deeper meaning or bigger issue, why write it? It's not a poem without the deeper meaning.
I do my best to work some sort of social commentary or criticism into all my poems, yet I have steered clear of politics. Politics as a whole are so asinine that writing an asinine poem about the political climate, or whatever else, would almost seem like a factual discussion wouldn't it?
Seriously though, it seems like political affiliations are so polarizing at this point in time, that writing an asinine poem about politics would remove the humor from the poem itself to some degree. The people who disagree would just see it as bashing whoever or whatever is being talked about. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be political poems, there should be, but I'm not sure that writing asinine political poems is the best way to have your statements be taken seriously, without draining all the humor out of it.
I don't mind being the Tucker Carlson of asinine, because I own a bowtie (yes, it's paisley). Also I don't mind being obnoxious. But I totally hear what you're saying about ours being a polarized age and political discourse being seen as polemical. People seem to take themselves and their ideas too seriously nowadays. I still think there is value in mingling the asinine and the socially conscious, although I realize what I do may be seem as ham-fisted or preaching to the choir. (By the way, I dig the way you, Wade, slyly deconstruct cultural icons to your own purposes.) I'd like to try to be more subtle, but the fire to say something burns inside. (Piker hates my stuff.)
By the way, have you all noticed what's going on in the window of this picture? Talk about wagging the dog.
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