How much can you know about a movie, a book, a poem from a snippet, be it a trailer, the first page, the first few lines? Joan Houlihan in Contemporary Poetry Review makes the case that the quality of a poet’s work can be determined with some accuracy by “previewing” a poem’s first few lines.
Her bottom line could be seen as an extreme position:
As we move into the next decade, it seems very likely that a subset of all published poetry will, like music, become readily experienced or viewed for free, and that readers will “sample” poems and make any buying decisions based on these samples. Readers will become sophisticated enough in their own judgments, or tuned in enough to trusted recommenders wherever and however encountered, and soon the disappearance of reviews in mainstream periodicals won’t be missed. It may even turn out that the book of poems as physical object no longer holds us, cannot maintain its presence through the next ten years, cannot justify its 65 or more pages of poems all bound into one place—we might instead purchase only 5 or 10 poems at once, or a “mixed tape” of poems we love, or a subset of poems by a favorite poet. The packaging and distribution mechanisms are already in place; we, the readers, will only need to become proficient at making our own selections. Just be sure to read the first lines before you buy.
She employes her poetic critiquing skills on four recently published poetry volumes—Word Comix by Charlie Smith, The History of Forgetting by Lawrence Raab, Blind Rain by Bruce Bond and Trust by Liz Waldner. While you may not agree with her assessment of these four writers, I found the article worth the read. The poems of the last two, Bond and Waldner, particularly interested me. More of them to come.
Interesting statement about “previewing” a poem’s first few lines and judging it from that.
For me it feels like pushing poetry into a sound bite, an MTV video clip, a microwaved meal, a 60 second news spot. Not so sure I feel comfortable about this, but will read more on it and develop a deeper opinion.
As always, thanks for this post.
That was my response. But then I did spend some time watching myself reading poetry. Usually I connect at some mysterious level very early on. I don’t quite know how to categorize what that sense is since it feels very personal and subjective. But her conclusions feel a bit too extreme for me.
When I’m in a bookstore, I will read through a number of poems before deciding on a purchase. I need to feel an emotional connection (what are the words saying to me?) and an intellectual connection, and I look, too, for imaginative discovery, in how words are used, what they address and how. Poetry-reading is subjective for me.
I’ll toss out that I’ve read poems I didn’t feel too drawn to until after I’d heard them read. So, aural quality is another factor for me.
I want to read the article before commenting too much more. Thank you for making it available!