Quote of the Day (Christopher Caldwell, on Americans and Poetry)

“Americans believe that what separates poetry from normal speech is either pomposity or pseudo-intellectualism. Today they are almost always right about this. There is no longer any widespread understanding of how poetry works, or what function it is supposed to perform in the lives of individuals or societies.”—Christopher Caldwell, “Official Rhyme Without Reason,” Financial Times, January 24-25, 2009

The occasion for Caldwell’s blast against modern poetry is Elizabeth Alexander’s reading of “Praise Song for the Day,” at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Personally, I had no problem with that poem—but then again, after Maya Angelou’s performance at the first Clinton inauguration, my expectations for poetry at occasions of state have been permanently lowered. (The latter sounded like a politician’s attempt to touch every base in an electoral coalition: “So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew/The African, the Native American, the Sioux ... ”)

Still, Caldwell’s larger point, I think, is on target and fair. Contrast the position of poetry with that of songs—almost any songs—which Americans have taken to heart. I think that part of the reason for the latter is that the lines in the latter rhyme.

For centuries, poets were, in Shelley’s words, “the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” A big reason why was that rhyming schemes helped engrave their words in people’s memories. Poets lost their centrality when they forgot that, fact much like jazz ebbed in the affections of Americans when be-bop musicians forgot that one of the things that people loved about jazz was that they could dance to it.