The Prerequisites of Poetry

I read lots of modern poetry. I enjoy it. I also write poetry. However many, if not most, of the people around me do not read modern poetry and, in fact, will cringe if I suggest it. Why this fear and revulsion?

The situation raises a question: what are the prerequisites for reading and enjoying modern poetry? Do you need to write it to read it? I doubt it. (I hope not.) But there is clearly some sensibility, some "training" involved before people appreciate what modern poetry has to offer.

Or perhaps it is the other way around. Perhaps people are trained to not appreciate it. 

The fact is that we, as a culture, (I am speaking of western, particularly North American, culture here) have a distinct bias against fine arts. Oh, we fund NEA and such. But making fun of the arts and artists as pretentious, self-important — even fraudulent — poseurs is a popular pastime.

This aversion to the arts is not restricted to poetry. The same applies to the other "fine" arts such as painting, sculpture, and dance. The only arts that seem to be immune are fiction, music, and video (TV and movies) — those arts with a significant populist market. And even those arts are immune only in a narrow band of marketable styles.

We are often told that this rejection of art is a specifically American phenomena. The story goes that early in the Russian revolution, Vladimir Mayakovsky gave readings to stadiums and halls packed with fervent poetry fans. I am not sure how much I believe this. The same could be said of Alan Ginsberg who participated in Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. However, I suspect that many in the crowd were not as avid for poetry as they were for the music and the overall event.

How did we become acculturated in this way?

I believe there are a combination of factors that make poetry (and other arts) outsiders to popular culture. Some historical, some societal, some the responsibility of poets themselves.

Historically, in western society, the arts have been reserved for the upper classes. In the past many arts and artists were dependent on benefactors for their survival. Michelangelo, Mozart, Rilke... Only the wealthy were able to afford the arts and so funded (and sometimes interfered with) their creation. Even today, many art initiatives, museums, and exhibits are funded through private, wealthy benefactors. And when wealthy individuals aren't available, there has been a recent influx of well-healed corporations — oil companies, banks, telecommunication giants — willing to pick up the tab in return for the residual advertising opportunity the association creates.

Even when there have been more populist versions of the arts they were kept separate, such as the distinction between concert halls and music halls, theaters and vaudeville, literary fiction and dime-store novels.

I suspect this heritage of the patron, begun out of necessity, has permanently marked the arts as an object of suspicion to the common populace. Anything out of the ordinary or obtuse is suspected of holding itself up as too intellectual, too well-crafted for common people to understand. Sort of like the emperor's new clothes come to life.

This suspicion is exacerbated by a native cultural proclivity to "normalcy". Outsiders are shunned not so much because their behavior in innately distasteful, but because it goes against the urge to maintain the fabric of societal norms. Norms are, inherently, fragile since they rely on a shared, often unspoken, agreement to what is expected. The only way to maintain that center is by identifying (and rejecting) behavior that falls outside of the norm. And artistic endeavors, almost by definition, fall outside the norm in their effort to refine, heighten, and highlight specific moments, emotions, or predicaments.

Finally, artists themselves have a corresponding proclivity for "acting out" in opposition to traditional mores. In dress, behavior, and opinions, artists often go out of their way — consciously or subconsciously — to set themselves apart. Nerval had his lobster, Dali his mustache, Warhol had his... well, Warhol made himself into the extravagant mask he used to protect his own sensibility.

There are many possible explanations for these excesses. At least in part they are a disguise devised to distract us (and the artist) from facing the inevitable question of whether their work is any "good" or not.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of art is the lack of objective criteria for judgment. Oh, art criticism creates frameworks for assessing value and worth and explanations for why we respond to certain works differently than others. But ultimately it is the individuals who decide for themselves whether something is worthy of the moniker "art".

Even when an artist is successful, doubt shadows their success. Recognition by the establishment can as easily acknowledge a shallow stylist toeing the prescribed avant garde line as it can identify actual depth and artistic skill.

Without recourse to external validation, the artist is driven forward purely on the bravado of believing they are doing something worthwhile. When they are unknown, it is a belief that their brilliance is unrecognized. When they are famous, it is a belief that their true talent extends far beyond simple "popularity".

The will power needed to support this unprovable theory over time is hard to maintain. As a defense, external extravagances help draw the discussion away from relative worth to questions of sanity or propriety, which can be easier for the artist to deal with.

Finally, there is the work itself. For the past hundred years or so, poetry — like many of the other arts — has been at war with itself. The rejection of historical models for new forms (what the art critic Robert Hughes refers to as the "shock of the new") has left many readers confused. The rejection of rhyme for free verse, the oral tradition for concrete poetry, the tactile oeuvre for performance art... Each step forward baffles, and disconcerts the uninitiated in the audience. To those not "up" with the latest styles, it all seems more like hijinks than high art.

So here we stand — artists and audience — on either side of the chasm. The artists sneering at the "popular" audience, as a preemptive attack against their likely response. And the audience poo-pooing the artists as haughty and incomprehensible, for making them feel uninformed.

The common factor in this Mexican standoff is that the disdain on both sides is based on a purely superficial interpretation of the other party. Yes, modern poetry can be incomprehensible, if you just look at the surface and don't take the words on their own terms. And, yes, plenty of people still refuse to accept anything as poetry that doesn't rhyme. But perhaps jumping straight from Robert Frost to Michael McClure is more than can be expected of any human.

The fact is, modern poetry and poets, like artists in other art forms, have over the past hundred years stripped away the traditional scaffolding (such as rhyme and standard meter) to try and understand the true nature of the art itself.  And in its barest form, there is opportunity for both amazing achievements and failure. Because without the support of a recognizable structure, the work either succeeds or it fails miserably. There are few just plain "good" poems nowadays.

There are poets that are "easier" or "harder" to interpret for first time readers. This is as true for experienced poetry fanatics and novices. But many non-readers won't give any of it a try, waving it off with a dismissive "I don't understand modern poetry."

No, they don't. And they won't unless they try. Even an avid poetry reader such as myself can have a hard time reading through modern poetry magazines. As soon as you hit a poem you don't like or find inferior, the other poems start to blur together as some sort of indistinguishable, unappealing fog.

The fact is, it takes a considerable effort to read poems by different authors in one sitting. Imagine if you squished War & Peace, Joyce's Ulysses, and a Danielle Steele novel into one book and had to read it in one sitting. Now intermix the pages. At some point, things that might have seemed evocative, illuminating, or simply enjoyably escapist become a painful, unrealistic slurry of words you must slog through.

That is often the experience when reading poetry magazines and anthologies.  The fact is we are taught to read for content: quickly skimming the page for key facts or phrases. But each poem is a world unto itself, with its own syntax, its own landscape, its own leaps and limitations. Trying to "read through" multiple poems guarantees you miss the poetry and only notice the peculiarity.

To have any chance of appreciating poetry, you not only need to pause between each poem, you have to literally reset your expectations, your compass, as if entering a new country with new laws and a new language. Make no mistake, this is not an easy thing to do. We, as members of society, aren't used to it. In fact, most writing (magazine, newspapers,  advertising) works hard to avoid your having to do any work or make any adjustments.

But each poem is a separate entity, designed to be viewed on it own separate stage.  And if we are to understand and appreciate it we need to give it room to breathe. This is what makes poetry poetry instead of prose with line breaks.

So the only true prerequisite for reading modern poetry is to stop, take a deep breath, and approach each poem as a new and completely unique experience. Does that mean, if the non-poetry readers of the world do that they will enjoy the poems they read? No. The fact is, there is a frightening amount of bad poetry out there, even among the "sanctioned" literature of modern anthologies and text books. Besides, we all have different tastes. Not everyone likes every popular novel or movie, not everyone likes the same poems.

But if you are ever going to like poetry, or even understand it, you need to read it on its own terms. It's what we do for movies. As the lights go down and the trailers begin, we clear our minds and get ready for a new experience . It is almost a Pavlovian response. This is the same response we need to learn to practice at the beginning of each poem we encounter.

The $99 Device

I have lots of electronic gadgets around the house. Laptops ($600-800), TVs ($200-300), cell phones ($100-200 plus contract), video game consoles ($200-300), handheld game consoles ($150-200), tablets ($300-400), etc. With one or two exceptions, they are all quite impressive, heavily used, and worth the investment.

Mind you, that is no accident. In most cases, we spent a considerable amount of time analyzing whether we actually needed a new device, comparing options available on the market, and evaluating pros and cons before the purchase.  It's not that we can't afford these items. But they represent a significant cost — especially since they often require additional accessories to be useful. (More on that later.)

But not all my gadgets face the same scrutiny. A couple of years ago I bought a new digital camera.  I didn't need one;  I already had a perfectly good, if slightly older model.  But the new one was smaller and lighter with three times the resolution. More importantly, it was on sale for $80. So I bought it.

The fact is there is a tipping point below which an item becomes discretionary — throw away — a toy rather than a necessity— something you can buy on a whim rather than after careful consideration. I find from experience that for me that point is around $100. And, based on recent events, I suspect the same is true for many other Americans.

There has been a recent surge in sub-$100 electronic gadgets. All but the best smart phones advertise themselves that way (although that price point really is a sham since they require a contract that can exceed $100 a month).  The glut of Chinese android tablets sold through Amazon and Walmart are aiming at this market as well.

But what really caught my eye were two new, innovative gadgets coming in at this lower price point. First, is what Tadhg Kelly refers to as the video game "microconsoles". First among these is the Ouya, priced at $99 and targeted for general release in June.

The Ouya is not a copycat device; it is an entirely new concept entering a market dominated by entrenched, high-cost devices. Rather than using custom high-end components, Ouya uses largely commodity hardware and an open source operating system (Android) to build a low-cost, open platform for gaming. Even business-wise, it is different, since the focus is providing a competent platform quickly (and frequently) rather than expensive hardware plus expensive games on a 5+ year cycle.

Will it succeed? There's no way to tell. I think there's a good chance it will. And I hope it will, since I think there is a desperate need for some middle ground between high-end dedicated consoles and, quite frankly, sub-par cell phone/touch pad experiences. But there are plenty of unknowns involved. Not the least of which is: what games will be available on the Ouya?

But at $99 for the console and one controller, It is a very appealing item, which I am likely to buy just to see how it works. Its success in the market  would be an added bonus. But not even that is necessary. Because of the open platform, I could still use it as a sandbox for building my own games if I want.

The second gadget is Dell's Project Ophelia, and its competitors such as the S21H and MK809 II. These items all represent a new type of device, what might be called a PC-on-a-stick. They are not much bigger than a USB thumbdrive and serve as a very portable laptop replacement.

The Chinese entries, such as S21H and MK809 II, actually act as a portable computer; just plug them into a monitor or TV  and connect a keyboard and mouse and... voila!  Instant computer! 

Now, there are obvious drawbacks. The operating system, Android again, is designed for touch devices. So it is unclear how usable most apps will be with a mouse. But again, these devices come in around $60-80, making them an attractive "experiment".

This is particularly true of Project Ophelia, which takes a slightly different approach. Rather than providing a complete computer on a stick, Project Ophelia provides remote access to more powerful computers running familiar OSes. 

 Now, there are even more questions about these laptops-on-a-stick than the microconsoles. Details such as how much storage, boot time, power supply, and the most obvious: how large is the audience that has monitors, keyboards, and mice at all the appropriate locations? Be that as it may, it is still an intriguing option that solves problems tablets and smart phones do not today — e.g. "serious" computing that requires more accuracy than touch screens and more text editing than IMs and short emails.

So, will I get one? Not sure. I'm tempted.  If I had more faith that the wifi was reliable on the Chinese models, I would. Even at $50 or so, these devices must work properly to be worthwhile, even as a toy. And, although  I have more faith in Project Ophelia, it looks like it is largely an entry device for a cloud service, which — like smartphones — where the subscription fees would quickly exceed the initial outlay in cost.

So Ouya is clearly in my sights as an impulse buy. Even if Project Ophelia isn't, just its presence in the market — and the interest it inspires — indicates there is both an opportunity and a problem to be solved in the computing ecosystem somewhere between the ease of smartphones and tablets on one side and the heavy-duty computing of laptops and desktops on the other.

The Poetry of Regret

Our interpretation of literature is heavily influenced by our own experience. Nothing surprising there.

I have been reading Chinese poetry (in translation) for a long time. The experience is sometimes baffling, often discordant, and at times even cartoonishy funny. This has far more to do with the sad state of translations than the poetry itself. Lines like the following are unlikely to be seen as poetic by either English or Chinese readers:

Alone with my zither I wait...

However, recently I've begun to see the classic Chinese poets as poets of regret.

Now, regret is a common theme in poetry across cultures and throughout time. Certainly, the Chinese poets, such as Li Po and Wang Wei express regret. But what makes that an identifying characteristic of their work for me?

For example, The Italian hermetic poets express plenty of regret. Even picking poems at random, they ooze a sense of loss:

Distant into a distant land
like a blind man
they have led me by the hand.

— Guiseppe Ungaretti, trans. by Patrick Creagh
(Selected Poems, Penguin Books, 1971)

But this is really a poem about loss, not regret. What could the narrator have done differently? What, ultimately, is the event — the catalyst — to the poet's fall? The fate that the Italian poets depict is global and uncontrollable. It is mankind's fate they envision, not a specific set of choices consciously made and their consequences faced. There is sadness at the outcome, but there can be no real regret because there is no personal responsibility in play. It is a poetry of loss, not regret.

On the other hand, Chinese poems tend to be clearly focused on personal choice and its outcome:

Away from home, I was longing for news
Winter after winter, spring after spring.
Now, nearing my village, meeting people,
I dare not ask a single question.

— Li P'in, trans. by Witter Bynner
(The Jade Mountain, Alfred Knopf, 1929)

Any sort of generalization about literature is inevitably wrong in the specific. Not all Chinese poets — or poems — speak of regret. Not all Italian poets speak of loss. It is a tendency, the idiom of their time, that we sense and identify as such.

It is also the tinted hues of our own experience we see it through. As I say, I have read Chinese poetry for years. But now, as I stand examining my own actions, I see the tenor of their poetry, the moral and aesthetic  leanings more clearly.

I can read and appreciate the Chinese poems, despite the clouded mirror of translation I must peer through, because I am looking backwards myself. I am watching a boat that has set sail and  I am thinking of someone I won't see again. And today the poems talk to me more easily than they could ever have in the past.

Silence

It is hard to believe it has been almost 6 months since I last posted anything to my blog. I was aware time was slipping away, as each week I didn't publish anything. But 6 months goes by very quickly.

Not that I have abandoned the blog, as it might appear. I just found it difficult to finish anything. I have the usual excuse: not enough time. But who doesn't suffer that? What was more crippling was an inability to feel satisfied that any post was "done".

I have more than 30 posts in draft form and I tinker with them on a weekly basis. But nothing ever gets completed.

So if I had a resolution for the new year, it would be to be more "sloppy" — be satisfied with things the way they are. The rough, the incomplete. I can always add more later.

But the truth is I go though this dilemma cyclically. A rush of euphoric publishing, feeling confident, but it soon slows to a crawl as I start to second guess myself, comparing the present to the past. (Preferring what I did last week to what I am writing this.)

So, no promises. I may publish more — I want to publish more — and clear my "drafts" folder! But having seen this movie before, I cannot realistically guarantee that the ending won't be similar to one you have seen  before.

Going Around in Circles

I, like several million other people, have recently been trying out Google+. G+ has received plenty of press in the past few weeks and I don't want to add to the noise. But when I started I noticed two things that I didn't see mentioned until recently:

• All my G+ friends are KM types, or otherwise involved professionally in communication and social interaction. Few if  any of my "normal" friends are using G+ (or see why they should).
• I don't like making circles. They require too much thinking.

The first observation were confirmed this week when the unofficial Google Plus Directory (http://findpeopleonplus.com/) posted demographic information on G+ users based on their ascribed professions. Most of the top twenty are technology or information-focused professions. And many of those that are not explicitly "in the business" are questionably tied to technology (such as writers and designers).

My second issue is around circles. I understand they sound like a good idea. My personal (and professional) relationships are more complex than Facebook's simplistic friends / non-friends model.So being able to define your relationships in more detail sounds like a positive step.

The problem is, it's far more difficult than it sounds. I have friend friends and I have professional friends. I have professional friends and professional acquaintances. Some work for my old employer; some used to; some never did. Some know I am interested in poetry and video games (among other things); some don't. A few have met my wife; some may not even know I am married.

When I start to break it down, it is not only not binary, it is more complex than even I can describe. Which is what makes Google+'s circles so frustrating. They require too much thinking. This is not a technical issue, per se, but a failure to be able to turn an implicit organic process into an explicit concrete categorization.

In other words, my friends are analog and circles are digital.

Andrew McAfee confirmed my suspicions in a blog post. He goes into far more depth and argues that it is an issue of a priori vs. a posteriori decisions.I am sure he is right from a process perspective, but I am not even sure deciding after I find an item to share is going to help that much.

Part of the joy of Twitter is that there is no decision. You post or you don't. You open yourself to anyone who chooses to listen (essentially). Oh, it has its limitations as well (starting with the length of the messages). But the freedom from thinking about who a message is intended for can be quite liberating.

However, that freedom doesn't have much to do with friends; it has more to do with publishing (or proclaiming). But it can be a useful and easier process in the digital world than trying to sort out your friends.

Holy Crap, Batman! The Social Business Stack

I just read D. Hinchcliffe's (@dhinchcliffe) Social Business Stack at the Dachis Group and all I can say is [explicative deleted]. Dang! That's one impressive and imposing architectural diagram!

I'm not saying the diagram is architecturally incorrect. In fact, I suspect it is accurate from a corporate IT perspective. It looks like so many other all-inclusive architectures.

The trouble is no normal human being in their right mind could look at it and do anything but shake in their boots. This is the sort of diagram that justifies five years of intense IT investment. It also presupposes (or pre-justifies) failure since there are so many moving parts.

The stack is accurate in that it captures all of the possible interactions and interdependencies from a KM and IT perspective. (That is, the old people/processes/technology triumvirate.) But the fact is no one really cares about anything but the top layer. (The Social/People layer.)

So why is this so complex and social networking "in the wild" so simple? Well, it isn't that simple in real life. But:

• On the public web people are more than willing to do things manually to "make it work", such as putting in links to blogs, etc by hand.
• If it does become difficult, there's an app for that. People are happy to juggle 5, 10, even 20 separate apps such as bit.ly, twitpic, intagr.am, last.fm etc to achieve their goals. What's more, it is cumulative: people learn new tricks from watching their friends' posts.
• Ultimately, the public internet is an almost limitless (since it is always growing) source of additional material, support, inspiration, or target for discussion.

 In other words, all the other layers of Dion's stack exist in the public instance but no one cares about them. Not that they aren't necessary. The next four layers (Data, Delivery, Aggregation, and Discovery) are just assumed to be there. And the critical vertical integration "glue" is heavily biased towards manual effort and simple HTTP links, rather than some complicated automation.

The last two layers (Security and Business Model) also exist. But people are amazingly carefree about security on the public web and the Business Model is the responsibility of the technology/service providers and people simply give a yea or nay vote on the instantiation by staying with the service or moving on.

So, what does this mean? I think the first meaning is that, as usual, corporations are taking something simple (or deeply complex but with a simple surface layer) and getting caught up in the morass that underlies it. Secondly, what the stack doesn't show is the often terribly anaemic state of the lower stacks behind corporate firewalls. The oft-repeated aphorism "If only we knew what we know" can usually be expanded to its various corellaries:

• "If only we knew who knew what we know"
• "If only we knew where we stored what we know"
• "If only we could find what we know"
• "If only I had permission to know what we know"
  
• etc.

So, I think the social business stack as represented is correct. But I am terribly concerned about what such a diagram would be used for. Because, ultimately, it is people — not technology or processes — that are the deciding factor. And people have astonishing resilience and patience for "making things work" when they have an interest in the outcome.

What I'm Playing: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors

I am currently playing three puzzle games on the Nintendo DS. They are all different, but playing them together helps clarify what works — and what doesn't work — in each.

The first game I started was 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (affectionately referred to as 999). This is a puzzle/story game, where to progress through the story you need to solve puzzles. It is a pretty well-established genre, similar in nature to the Nancy Drew games, Professor Layton, Myst, etc.

999 is what might be described as a survival-horror puzzler, because the story involves your character, Junpei, being kidnapped and trapped on a sinking ship with eight other people. They must work together to escape before time runs out (the eponymous 9 hours).

Let me just say I expected to like this game. It sounded unusual and got quite good reviews for both its puzzles and its ambiance. But I was seriously disappointed.

The puzzles are fine. In fact, the game starts off well with a locked room puzzle of moderate difficulty. No wasting half an hour on simplistic "training" levels. Unfortunately, the game takes a turn for the worst, in several respects, when story elements are introduced.

For a story-driven puzzler, the story line is grisly and unnecessarily so. Death and mutilation is intended to give you as the player a sense of suspense and tension. But since you have so little control over the action of the game (except tapping the screen to advance the story) the gruesome events are only uncomfortable.

And the discomfort is extenuated by the unrealistic story line. You are trapped with eight other people who look like they just came from a circus (literally) or a Village People tribute concert. Each a unique and comically stereotyped representation of.... something. A belly dancer, a heavy-set laborer, an effete aristocrat... you get the idea.

To make matters worse, the story is presented in a crude 2D pantomime. Static images, with flat images of the cartoony cast (literally, drawn as cartoons) floating in and out of view like shadow puppets. This is suspense? Even viewed as a retro "edgy" presentation style, the clumsy graphics become tedious.

Worse yet, the awkwardness of the presentation carries over to the game play. At one point, you are required to turn a ship's wheel. A relatively simple puzzle device, given you are shifted to a direct front view. And with touch control, you would think it a simple thing to allow the user to touch and drag the wheel to turn it, no?

No. The UI puts up arrows pointing left and right above the wheel which you are forced to click on to make the wheel turn. They almost had to go out of their way to make the interaction so... unnatural.

And finally, the game fails at its own goal of making you feel like it is something more than just a handful of meaningless puzzles. For all of the portents, unnecessary curse words, and grisliness, the game is constantly forcing you to respond to relatively meaningless or obtuse statements and suggestions from the other members of the party. But when it matters, when something is seriously wrong and you — even if you believed the story and wanted to "play" — you are given no control except clicking and clicking and clicking while line after line of text inches past until your bizarrely frozen in place persona is killed...

Yes, I played all the way through to one of the "bad" endings. I was then given the option of replaying the game, with the advantage that I could jump through text and scenes I was already familiar with. No thank you. Once was more than enough.

[To be continued....]