Context
Don’t Force Dammit
Anne Burke
Poems we could do without . . . I
think it’s about time we call a moratorium on poems that begin with
talk of trees, leaves, and branches, leading inevitably to an overt
statement about something or other (love, appreciation of nature, the
mystery of everything) or an implied statement about something or other
(see list in previous parentheses). I don’t want to name names here
because people get offended so easily when confronted with the
vacuousness of their art, as do their admirers. I, however, think that
someone must defend the integrity of trees, leaves, and branches, and
object to their manipulative use at the hands of third-rate poets who
can be read, understood, and loved by people with severe brain damage.
Please keep your impaired imaginations away from nature; let it be; do
not despoil it further. Even if all Americans sigh at the conclusions
of these putrid, all-too-familiar piles of words and even if the
National Book Awards will give its annual embarrassment to the latest
installment of the trees-leaves-branches genre poet, the endorsements
of the masses are also what brought us George W. Bush. Popularity is
not the measure of art. In fact, beware the popular. I do wish I could
name names here, but I am tired of being censored in this publication,
and so will refrain from doing so. What was that about elitism . . . Granted,
one does not look to the book show on the weekend edition of C-SPAN in
order to participate in the intellectual rigors of the day, but what
was Michael Silverblatt & Panel up to in discussing "elitism"
during a taping from last summer’s BEA convention in New York? The
short description on the C-SPAN website is: "This forum addressed the
question of whether or not publishers, booksellers, and reviewers
alienate the public by projecting an image of ideological elitism."
Publishers project an image of ideological elitism? Huh? We can only
hope that one day publishers might do this. But, with this phony
premise in hand, all on the panel proceed to reject elitism, of course,
led by (who other than?) Laura I-Once-Had-A-Mind Miller of Salon. Rather than arguing against elitism, however, the panelists seemed more to be against excellence.
But of course they didn’t use that word because no one is going to
object to excellence, except perhaps Laura Miller. A given in the
discussion was that the panelists were all capable of understanding
challenging books, but they were there to defend the common man against
such things, and apparently they don’t have a high opinion of the
common man. Mr. Silverblatt appeared to spend the time regretting that
he had gotten involved in any of this. One book, one city . . . I
was delighted to see that last year New York refused to participate in
what I think is a mindless gesture towards reading, community, good
feelings, and mental health, or whatever the hell this idea of having
everyone read the same book in the same month is supposed to promote.
The great virtue of the book qua book is that it is one of the last
forms of human activity where one can be alone, encountering something
(a book) on one’s own terms, reading it at whatever pace, relating to
it however one can or chooses. In short, it is a purely democratic form
of activity, paying homage to the concept that an individual can
function independently rather than as a faceless member of a cheering
crowd. I see this idea of the "one book" as a means of corrupting the
very act of reading. Further, it is interesting that the books chosen
to be read are inevitably promoting a social or political agenda,
serving as civic lessons for us all. Government-sponsored reading! Are
we all morons so as not to be able to see what the intentions here are?
Once upon a time, books were meant to upset the apple cart, to make
politicians nervous, threaten the status quo, shake up our
expectations, make us question things anew. I will change my views
about everyone reading the same book the day that one of Jean Genet’s
novels is selected. And do you know what THIS word means? Ah,
well, the morning NPR show. This morning there was a segment on feeling
safe. They interviewed a few common folk on the street (one said he
feels safe when he is reading a book, another said she feels peaceful
when she jogs), but the piece’s narrator was given center stage on the
subject. She feels peaceful when she visits a cemetery in Seattle
("Hey, get me a cup of gourmet culture while you’re out, okay?") and
gazes on a statue of a shrouded woman. To quote: "They say the figure
is androgynous, that you can’t tell whether it is a man or a woman."
Oh, thank you, NPR, for explaining what androgynous means. How
much thought went into the decision to explain the meaning? Why not
just say that people can’t tell whether it’s a man or a woman? Well,
because NPR is essentially about lifestyle. For those listeners who
know the meaning of androgynous (we are, after all, talking
about the NPR ever-faithful audience, and so this number must be at
least 13%), they feel fine—just the kind of word they like to hear and
know that most of their fellow Americans have no idea what it means.
For the other 87%, they too feel good—they just got invited into an
“elite” club (the sound of Laura Miller groaning in the background),
and they vow to try to use this word in a sentence at least three times
today. . . . The perfect NPR puff piece, one that will not upset
anyone, especially our government officials who fund this outfit.
Behind the subject of today’s show, I am sure (though I didn’t catch
the beginning), is that we all must feel a little nervous these days,
what with the threats of war with Iraq and more domestic terrorist acts
(NPR of course would not mention the anxiety caused by having a raving
lunatic running our country). . . . Which reminds me about a segment
that the morning show ran the day before Thanksgiving, a segment about
the rare "bronze American turkey," the true turkey, the tasty turkey,
the all-natural turkey that roams the range free and is raised by only
a handful of true Americans, as opposed to the turkey mills that raise
overweight turkeys, mostly white meat, turkeys so fat that they have to
be artificially inseminated, filled with chemicals. . . . You can
imagine thousand upon thousands of NPR listeners, all of those hopeless
yuppies, taking notes on the bronze turkey, which they will all try to
order next year, and then gleefully tell people they heard about this
wondrous creature on NPR. Yes, it’s all about lifestyle. . . . Does
anyone remember when NPR was an alternative to commercial radio? And don’t forget the Sandwich Show . . . I
wish this weren’t true, but PBS—another bastion of intellectual
rigor—had an hour-long show on about the best sandwiches in America. Is
this what PBS was created to do, the great response to what Newton
Minnow called "the vast waste land" (i.e., commercial television) all
the way back in the 1950s? Well, well, well: half a century later, and
we have a show about the best sandwiches and where to find them. Now, I
will admit to having watched this show with some degree of interest—who
doesn’t want to know about the best sandwich place in Philly if,
sentenced to Hell, one winds up in Philly some day and is in need of
nourishment? . . . But why is this show on PBS??? Who thought it was
just right for the television partner to NPR (well, of course, it
sardonically is just right). . . . Two more cheers for the common man.
Are PBS and all of those hopeless foundations that fund it so
despairing of the average American that they can’t do any better, or
are they so dumb as to think this is the best and brightest of our fair
land? So, I ask you: Are they stupid, or are they cynical? The correct
answer here is that PBS is cynical and the foundations are stupid. . .
. At any rate, I can assure you that the show was quite interesting and
quite a welcome alternative to the moronic Ken Burns specials (can
anyone who is intelligent watch a Ken Burns documentary without puking
for several hours afterwards?). Or a welcome alternative to the
ever-insipid Charlie Rose. Oh, dear God, I could go on but won’t, for
fear I’ll wind up asking why PBS has become the home for the Lawrence
Welk show—well, that is, the reruns of the show. Poetry Magazine and the big bucks . . . Why is everyone so upset about Poetry Magazine hitting it big time with a $100 million endowment grant from Ruth
Lilly? The uproar is really astounding. I don’t think I’ve read or
heard one positive comment about it. The most common complaint is that
the donor should have spread the money around, so that other poetry
magazines or organizations could benefit. But why should she have? It’s
her money. If she thinks the magazine is that great, then she
did what she should have done, and what almost no one else has ever
done in this country: given substantial amounts of money to literature.
The only thing dismaying about Lilly’s gift is that this is so unusual
a philanthropic gesture that it makes headlines across the country. . .
. Of course, there is the wonderful irony here that this major gift did
not come from anyone in Poetry’s hometown, Chicago. . . . New York Times Book Review, alas . . . Has anyone noticed that the blessed Review has now shrunk to about 4 pages in length? How did this all come about?
How are we to find out about the best of the best in books with all of
those truly penetrating reviews that the Times is so famous for? Who would have thought that Fahrenheit 451’s
vision of a bookless world would have come about as an inevitability of
the marketplace? Leave it to the United States to come up with
inventive ways of controlling the media!
