Monday, March 04, 2013

What Is a Poet For? from HUFFPOST CULTURE

"The extension beyond function becomes art and we can all argue for hours about the merits and pitfalls of art, whether we can or should define what it is or what it is for. Is it enough for language to dance and be beautiful, to entertain? Does it even need to make sense in the generally understood meaning of the word? Or should these elements be by-products of a medium that has teaching as it's aim?

"What seems certain now, with everybody afforded nearly even footing on world reaching platforms, is that merely speaking or writing to an audience is no longer enough. We can all do that without publishers, without (much immediate) political intervention, and as we all try to drum up interest in our own light on the stage, the whole scene is becoming saturated, blanked out in a white noise of options.

"The new poet, I believe, becomes more than ever before a listener and a watcher, a person able to tune in to what is really going on beneath the white noise, and form pockets of peace from it, still moments in which human beings can swim, however they wish to. Rather than being restricted by attempting to 'find the light' of publishing, or fame, or audience, the maze of source material spreads out before us, and the methods of forming that material into a 'poetry' grow just as fast."

- Rick Holland read the entire article HERE

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